Have you ever struggled with that phrase “just a mom”? Not everyone does, but those that are stay at home moms particularly, I believe, battle the feelings of disappointment when you wonder if all you will be is “just a mom”. I know I have and, honestly, only recently found joy, contentment and complete peace if all I am to be is a wife and mother. It’s one of those struggles that we often face of being so thankful we get to stay home with our children and knowing what an incredible blessing and honor it is…yet at the same time, longing for other interactions and more purpose and identity. Some mamas are phenomenal stay at home moms and naturally gifted and passionate mothers as homeschoolers and homemakers, etc. But me…God, this isn’t where I wanted to be.
A few months ago, during a car ride without the kids, I was praying and asking the Lord why there seemed to be a wall I was running into when I prayed, and the Lord began showing me…
“It’s because you still feel hurt, wounded, disappointed and a distrust towards Me. But you don’t want to admit it and have been trying to shut those feelings out because you don’t want to feel that way towards Me. You know I’m right and true with purpose in all that I do, so you can’t forgive Me knowing I did nothing wrong. That doesn’t seem right. But instead of running towards Me with those feelings, you bury them. You try to choke the tears back and hide it and pretend it’s not there. Stop hiding your disappointments and hurt, I already know them…so just come to Me instead just like any good relationship and let’s talk.”
I began weeping before Him as I realized how I had indeed buried so much. My passion was never to be a mother, I loved working and had always wanted to work with people. Yet…here I was a stay-at-home mom for the past nearly 9 years and feeling trapped. The more I expressed the more I realized how hurt I was that the only future it seemed God had for me was a “mom” and that’s not what my heart’s desire was. Sure, being a mom for a big percentage I could go for, but I wanted to feel like I contributed to society in other ways too another good percentage. That day was the beginning of the next few weeks of the Lord gentling my heart.
I began hearing this song in the background of my day, a song I hadn’t heard in years and frankly had annoyed me for some time. But I would only hear a part of the song: “I’m diving in, I’m going deep, in o’er my head I want to be…” The first time I heard that, I saw a visual of a pool. I was standing inside the fenced area of the pool looking longingly at the pool, like I wanted to dive in, but I was scared. I didn’t fully know what it all meant, but I knew God was trying to teach me something.
Shortly afterwards, we saw the movie Unsung Hero and the mother gripped my heart and it was a mix of Satan’s voice saying, “see you aren’t a good mother, you can’t ever be like her…you fail even as a mother” and God’s voice saying “Do you not see the great importance of what it means to be a mother? Motherhood IS a vital role and calling. It isn’t ‘just a mother’, Mary was not ‘just My mother’, she was life and wholeness and heart and so much all My human years. Do you think I saw her as insignificant and without a great purpose when I chose her to be My mother?”
A few days after that I was talking to a close friend who was sharing some AMAZING things another friend of hers was doing. At a young age how much she had accomplished in helping hundreds of children, getting a masters, running multiple foundations while being a mother. And truthfully, I heard that story and choked back tears half in jealousy and half in defeat over my own failures that I couldn’t even come close and here I am in my mid thirties with nothing to show for these years. And the Lord rebuked me in that moment. “You see all the things that you have not had great successes at as ‘failures’, but I see them as ‘stepping stones’ moving you more and more into the position you couldn’t have gotten to without those experiences. Everything taught you something valuable. And you can never compare your timetable to someone else’s.”
Then one day, while I was sitting at the table taking communion with the Lord, I opened my hands and began crying out to God again. Once again, He showed me that pool. This time I was on the diving board looking down. And I began to understand what the pool represented: it was Holy Spirit, but it was more than just what I already tasted and experienced inside the pool enclosure…this was the deep things of who I am in Him if I fully submerged into everything He wanted me to be in Him and let go. I’ve been in this enclosed safe place in Christ, but He wanted to take me deeper and farther into whom He created me…but I wasn’t fully trusting yet. I had wanted to yet because of past hurts, I was afraid and second guessing what was of God and what wasn’t if it was a trick of some sort. So He showed me the story of Deborah and Gideon and parts of who He made me to be in those stories, then He took me to Psalm 46. In this Psalm, in the middle of great trouble to the point that nations are in uproar, kingdoms are falling, the earth is dying…there is a river of life whose streams make glad the city of God, a holy place where the Most High dwells. And He spoke to me and said, you are a river of life to your family that flows in the middle of all the chaos to bring life not death. Your children abide in you and your husband right now and they will find My presence as you abide in Me and I abide in you. I am within you. And because I am in you, you will not fall, and I will help and be with you until and even when the darkness breaks into day.
He called to me, “Daughter, you must let go of all your fears and what’s holding you back. You’re scared of what you will become and what will happen when you finally completely and fully let go and jump in the water with both feet. You’ve wanted to, but it’s like you’re on that diving board, not really turning back but too nervous to take the plunge. I’ve been telling you ‘No’ for so many things and shutting doors for jobs you keep trying to do to figure out what will help your family and to find your sense of purpose. You needed to be pushed into a corner so that you have a choice: either you jump in both feet or you turn around. Your greatest fear is that all I’ll ever let you be is a mother, and if you jump in, you’ll feel like you’ll completely lose every part of yourself and your passions and you’ve forgotten that I made you with all those passions. I didn’t make you to have those desires only to throw them away and say it was all a mistake. Daughter don’t be afraid any longer. Let go of all the hurts and fears and jump. See where I will take you.”
That song “Dive” began to echo in my spirit again, so I finally looked it up on YouTube and listened to the whole song and began weeping as I sang the words in agreement.
…
My heart is racing, and my knees are weak
As I walk to the edge
I know there is no turning back
Once my feet have left the ledge
And in the rush, I hear a voice
It’s telling me it’s time to take the leap of faith
So here, I go
I’m diving in, I’m going deep, in over my head I wanna be
Caught in the rush, lost in the flow, in over my head I wanna go
The river’s deep, the river’s wide, the river’s water is alive
So, sink or swim, I’m diving in.
(Truly the whole song was speaking to me not just this snippet, but this part resonated the strongest.)
And for the first time I said, “Okay…if all I am is to be a wife and mother and friend, a support type of person then I will be satisfied and learn to be completely fulfilled in that purpose. I’m diving into whatever it is You want me to be no matter how small or big that may look through human eyes. I’m diving in…sink or swim.”
At that moment, it was as if I closed my eyes and jumped, and I felt myself leap into the arms of my Father and become fully emerged into His Spirit and life suddenly fill every part of me. Then, I saw something else. That pool opened at one end and it became a river full of life and laughter that flowed and brought delight and refreshment and hope in the middle of the darkness and chaos. God began to give me a fresh perspective and joy in motherhood that I didn’t truly know before. I’ve always loved my kids, but I was striving for something more in this wrestling match with my time vs. their time and my identity as a mother vs my identity as a woman. And that changed. I still don’t know where He will take me yet and there have been many gradual perspective shifts since then but I’m growing in the confidence and joy in motherhood. I know I’m not the only mother who struggles with feeling hidden, forgotten, disappointed, unimportant and a “just” in being a mom. It’s often easy to have the head knowledge of how God sees us as mothers and how important mothers are in the Bible even, but allowing the Lord to gentle our hearts and help us have that heart transformation and mind renewal is quite a bit harder. Our ideology in America that also exalts busyness and being important or elevated while minimizing those who live simply or hidden as though they have nothing to contribute is flat out unbiblical and a trap of the enemy…not the truth of what God says about us. Are there women/mothers who have other callings on their life in different capacities? Most certainly! But it doesn’t mean the “average” mom who only focuses on her children is not doing the very thing God has called her to do. He very much takes great delight and sees her as a priceless jewel just as much as a mother who is running orphanages, working as a CEO in some big company and raising her family in the image of God! I want to encourage you as one who has clearly battled these feelings, you aren’t alone in this, and do you know that the Bible actually already tells us what our purpose is and that we should not compare? Whatever we do, whether it’s being a wife and mother or working profession etc…we are to glorify God (Isaiah 43:7), that is our ultimate purpose. The rest…He’ll direct each step bit by bit; we don’t have to know the whole story yet or fast forward. Just learn to be completely fulfilled and satisfied in bringing glory to God in whatever position you are in currently, and if there are other assignments along the way…then just “go with the flow” and find delight in the process!