Just something I was thinking about this morning…

It seems women always want to emphasize the difficulty of motherhood. But here’s what I think… It’s not that motherhood is difficult; it’s that life is difficult. I remember hearing Jordan Peterson state that the baseline of human existence is difficulty. That is on the mark. It doesn’t matter if it’s raising children or working a job or struggling with singleness or wherever one is at in life. Life is difficult and full of challenges. But here’s the thing: Just because life is difficult doesn’t mean it has to be overwhelming or frustrating. It’s our perspective in how we view these challenges and discomforts that shape how difficult they actually are. And what is the alternative? To sit in constant comfort and ease and never grow in resilience and character? How incredibly boring we would be. A life of comfort is not what we are called to, but a life of servitude.

However, I think we as women make our life more difficult than it needs to be. A big contributing factor to this is losing focus of our purpose and being single-minded on what God has called us to. Life has challenges no matter what, but if we are trying to accomplish all kinds of things that aren’t in God’s will for us, we are making things much harder for ourselves than they need to be. Further, if our focus is on ourselves and we are trying to live our days to satisfy selfish desires (which do not satisfy us anyway), then we will view our children as distractions rather than as the priority of what we are living for. 

In our society, women are trying to balance careers with being good mothers and loving, supportive wives. But God has never told women to provide for the household. That is a lie that our feminist culture has told us, and many fell for it. But Scripturally, God has told women to be keepers of the home. A huge burden would be lifted if women left the providing to the men, as is God’s design, and thereby freed themselves to focus their energies on raising children and helping their husbands and all that that entails. 

Yet some women who do not hold careers and are full-time homemakers still seem to find themselves frustrated with their children because their priorities are still elsewhere—on their desires and distractions that make their children seem like a burden to what they truly want to focus on. But if we could reorient our hearts and minds to where God wants them to be—on respecting and helping our husbands and raising up godly children, and going into each day with the mindset that this is the task we are giving ourselves to, and to do it with all our heart as unto the Lord, then life suddenly becomes much more simple and joyful. We view helping our husbands as a blessing and an honor, because we trust and submit to the One who designed our roles perfectly. We view devoting our time to raising up godly children as a joy, because they are the next generation to proclaim the excellencies of Christ in a lost world, and we have the honor of teaching them truth and instilling in them a deep love for our Savior and King. We do this all with gratitude and gladness, seeing each day as a gift from the Lord, because each day is.

This is not to say we cannot serve the Lord in any other ways ever. On the contrary, homemakers are more free to give themselves to acts of mercy than women who exhaust their time to careers and have little time to spare with their family, let alone time to visit widows and orphans and the like. A homemaker has all the time to teach her children the importance of serving others and demonstrating to them what that looks like in accordance with Scripture. 

Our culture thinks it’s offensive to tell a woman to stay home to raise her children and serve her husband, but what is actually offensive is assigning burdens to women that we were never meant to carry. And the detriment of this is becoming more and more evident through the increasing rates of women’s depression, anxiety, anger, divorce, abortion, and the list goes on.

Women have been lied to. And some may be offended by women like me who address it, but it is out of sincere love for women that we say these things. Feminists who fight for women’s empowerment do not love women. They love themselves. And they are willing to kill babies, divorce their husbands, weaken the military, and drive society to complete disorder, all under the guise of women’s rights. 

Thankfully many are waking up to this and returning to God’s ordered and perfect design which blesses us. Unfortunately, it takes some women getting angry at this reality, but truth is always above feelings.

Having an entitled mindset doesn’t discard God’s good design. If we are truly desiring to submit ourselves to Christ, we would be more than happy to take on whatever role God has assigned us and submit ourselves to that. We have forgotten that we are here for God’s good pleasure, not to live as we please, as if we own ourselves. 

If the Lord has designed male headship with women being the weaker vessel, who are we to protest that? I think many confuse the biblical female position with inferiority or less value or worth. But that is not the case. God’s design is to maintain order in society and to reflect the beautiful relational roles within the Godhead. As the Son submits to the Father, so wives submit to their husbands. This is a beautiful picture that we get to emulate. There is nothing offensive about it. Jesus does not have less value within the Godhead because He submits to the Father’s will, nor do wives have less value because we submit to our husbands. We are showing our submission and reverence to God as we follow His perfect design for us. 

His design is an honor to us women because through it we are protected and cared for. We are not the ones called to step out into battle or to provide for and protect the household (of course we mother bears have that protective instinct over our children, and we would certainly lay down our lives for our children, but hopefully the meaning of what I am saying is being understood). God’s design protects women because He values them so much. If anything, it could almost be argued that women have the higher honor in God’s sight, because what is protected is what is most cherished. But God values all human lives equally. Different functions and roles do not equate to different value. 

But look how I’ve gone on a long tangent. I started this off by saying life contains difficulty no matter where our current station is, whether motherhood or anywhere else. Rather than always looking to escape it, which is impossible, we should change our perspective and align our mindset with Scripture to live unto God with gratitude. 

Rather than living with a constant “if only” attitude, we should learn to be content with where God has us and live each day with purpose. Rather than thinking life is about being comfortable, we should remember that we are here to glorify God. So let us, with glad hearts, rise each morning with the purpose of living our day to love and serve God, casting aside any self-entitled mindset that creeps in, and joyfully live our days with humble submission and worship unto God. We were created to worship Him, after all. Nothing else will bring us as much joy as what we were created for.