The Call to Motherhood

As a young girl, I remember thinking that I would follow the same exact path my mother journeyed: go to college, get married, have babies, and live the abundantly glamorous mom life. I spent year after year thinking that motherhood would be a choice I would make for myself at some point, just like any other major life choice I typically found myself in control of making.

So when I found myself in my mid-20s without babies in my near future, I began wrestling with the deep desires I had to be a mom. There were days that I stuffed away that unmet desire and focused on trying to fill the void with successes, and then there were days that envy welled up tears in my eyes when I saw my friends with kids. I found myself full of sadness when leaving homes where I babysat because I wanted my own kids — don’t worry moms, I also left those homes relieved that I was going home to my quiet and clean home where I got 8 or more hours of sleep each night.

My envy for children led me to believe the lie that the Lord had abandoned me and my desires to mother. Abandonment is not, and never will be, of the Lord; feeling abandoned is the enemy’s tactic for drawing us away from who God called us to be. Because the Lord is full of mercy though, he placed me in a community that drew me again and again back to the Table of the Lord, where I am declared both a beloved daughter and a called mother. As I feasted on the the Lord’s goodness, I gradually heard his calling:

Rachel, my daughter, you are a mother. You are mother not because of any choice you have made or skills you have fostered but because that is who I have called you to be.

As I said, I have no biological or adopted children; my household family consists simply of me, but my eyes have opened to what it means to be part of the household of God. I have an abundance of spiritual family members — full of daughters, sons, mothers, and fathers. God used his Church to reveal this lesson to me and gently invite me into faithfully following his command to love him with all my heart, soul, and mind and to teach this command to my children (Deuteronomy 6).

Just as none of the Israelites were exempt from the commands God directed Moses to give, whether they were young, old, single, or married, I too must impress the command to love God on my children.

So, the question on my heart was no longer, “why am I not a mother yet” but rather, “who are my children, Lord,” which I discovered is a question the Lord delights to answer.

As I asked that, he revealed to me certain children that he was calling me to disciple; some of those were actually in their childhood years on earth, and all of them were God’s children in need of shepherding. I began praying for these specific people and meeting with them to read the Bible and pray together. I discipled these children as a mother — a mother that so fiercely loves her children and will sacrifice much for her flock. Through being on mission with these spiritual children, the Lord’s calling of me to be a mother came to fruition. Calling and identity are most tangibly experienced when we’re on mission – mission is where we look more like Jesus.

As I discipled the spiritual children in my life, my imagination stretched to understand what it means to be a spiritual mother: as a woman, made in the image of God, I am to grow and mature and be like God, who at the core of his identity, is a parent. Culture today encourages us to separate our identity as women from our identity as mothers: we are told that parenthood is a choice, that women lose much of their identity when they become mothers, that parenting is riddled with inconvenience. Rather than conforming to these cultural realities, the Lord calls us to make disciples, to spiritually parent.

My friend and pastor encourages all those in our church, no matter what age or station of life, to know who the spiritual children are in their lives that they are discipling. Many in my church are young parents, who know they are specifically called by the Lord to be discipling their kids at home, but those of us without kids are not left out. I have been immensely blessed to be surrounded by a church family that encourages me to live out my life as a spiritual mom and could not have learned this lesson without God’s people around me.

I would be lying if I said that the envy of lacking my own biological or adopted children didn’t sometimes bubble up – that is still a desire of my heart. However, that envy is temporary. It is an envy no longer entangled in calling or identity but simply in an earthly circumstance. And because the Lord is so abounding in mercy, he has revealed to me the gifts of spiritual motherhood as a single woman.

I have felt deeply called to partner with moms, to step in when they need another hand (seriously, why don’t moms of young children magically grow another pair of arms..), to take kids out for special one-on-one conversations, to ask kids questions and learn from them, to ask a mom how I can help the family survive that chaotic hour before dinner is ready, to bring energy into a home when the monotony of motherhood is overwhelming. My calling as a spiritual mother released me into the freedom of motherly partnership ministry – what a sweet, heart wrenching, messy, and beautiful ministry this is.

So, dear sisters, we are women, deeply loved by the Lord as his daughters, each called to be mothers.

We are a community of moms – a community where we can bring our hurts, gratitudes, back-breaking burdens, praises, and failures.

We are a community of moms not because of anything we’ve done but because of who God declared us to be.

We are a community of moms that lack no good thing apart from the Lord.

We are a community of moms that have each other to partner with in mission.

My prayer for each of us is that we would not grow weary in our calling to do good as mothers, but rather, as Paul said in Ephesians 3, that we, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all God’s holy people around us, to know how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ is for us and for our children.

Rachel Wassink

Rachel lives in Aurora, Illinois where she enjoys doing life and ministry. She works for a non-profit ministry serving the refugee and immigrant community and feels called to welcoming more and more people into God's family. Rachel loves being outside, drinking coffee from local coffee shops, and making friends with people of all different ages and backgrounds.