A Mother's Rights?

by Maranatha Chapman

 

 

 

In becoming a wife and mother, as many of us have discovered, it requires total annihilation of our flesh. It takes death to what we want and death to our “past status” and former lifestyle of being childless. If there is any hanging on to who you were before you got married and began having children, you have to put it to death. In becoming a wife and a mother, you are not just taking on a new job, you are entering in to a fuller expression of who you are in terms of the vessel God made you to be. If you don't fully embrace your new role and come from the place of who you are—“Mother,” “Wife,” “Worker at home”—then you will constantly have a struggle with “What about what I want?”, “My needs,” “My time,” “My way,” “My preferences,” and the like, while still trying to run your home. And guess what? It will not work. You will be miserable and so will your family.

Before adding any new schedule or implementing one single idea you might get from this article or any other resource, take some time to do what it takes to die to these things and fully, wholeheartedly give yourself to who the Lord has made you to be and to the precious ones He has called you to serve. It‘s a daily sacrifice that comes without compliments or applause on most days. Motherhood will cost you everything and yet it is wonderful, but only if you completely lay down what you want.

Sometimes we moms believe these certain ideals of what motherhood is like, and we usually picked them up somewhere along the line before having children, but we can even have them after having children. They usually come from comparing ourselves to others or wrongly perceiving what motherhood must be like because of the seeming ease at which some mothers go about daily life. And then from this, we get the idea that motherhood is walking in the park, skipping and laughing, and only having to tell your child once to obey, and they completely change their attitude and look up at you and smile and throw their arms around you, never to disobey again. And you also decide that you are not going to be one of “those moms” in the store with a child screaming or pitching a fit and that you are going to succeed at raising exceptional children who just obey all the time without having to do much at all.

Motherhood is just not like that. But when we compare ourselves with others, we think, “They don't have to deal with what I have to,” or, “She's the perfect mom, why can't I be?” It is good to learn from others, but we are foolish and “without understanding” when we compare ourselves with others (2 Cor. 10:12). All of us have to deal with these same types of things, but God has made “a way of escape” (1 Cor. 10:13). So if motherhood is a struggle for you or if it is a fight of faith every single day and you have to call out to the Lord all day every day, then that probably means that you are doing something right! Remember God's promise: Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary (Gal. 6:9)! What will we reap as we persevere in “doing good” as mothers? An abundance of His grace and life flowing through us to our families.

But if you have something in you that says, “Hey, I'm doing pretty good” or “I've got everything under control,” I encourage you to really look at the source of these attitudes because “God is opposed to the proud” and only “gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). If we see ourselves accurately—from God's perspective—then we know beyond doubt that the only thing that makes us anything is because we are walking miracles of His grace and redemption. And for the sake of our children, we cannot afford the attitudes of “It really does not matter how we do this” or “Everything will turn out just fine” as we haphazardly proceed on through our child-rearing years, seeking the path of least resistance and minimal expenditure of our life. We need to be sober and keep in our face the reality that what we do now will affect our children later. If we humble ourselves and cry out to God, He really will help us and give us the grace we need, just as He promised. He really will make a way for us in this hugely important responsibility, but to walk in His way requires us, on our part, to live every day by waking up, looking to Him in faith, and saying, “Lord, I can't, but You can through me. This day is too big for me, and I don't know what all my family needs today, but You do, Lord, and I trust You to show me.” God gave you the home you have and the children you have, and He will give you what you need to run your home and mother your children (Phil. 4:13!!).

Let's look at First Corinthians 13:5. It tells us that “love (agape)… does not seek its own.” If we want to love our family the way the Lord intended, we cannot walk in any self-seeking. If you are serving your family in order to fulfill some need in you, or to get a certain feeling out of it, you need to know that you are not really loving them—you are doing it for you and for what you get out of it. Love is not self-serving. If you feel victimized by your children, expect your husband to notice every time you clean the bathtub, or feel continually frustrated and thwarted, you likely have hidden, self-seeking motivations behind the ways you “love” and “serve” your family. Whenever you see such things in you, turn away from them with all your heart (repent) and “put on love” (Col. 3:12-14). We will always experience more of the Lord's life and the fruit of the Spirit when we die to self throughout the day everyday.

 For us to experience the true life of the Spirit, we have to continually yield to Him and put our flesh to death every moment (Rom. 8:12-14). There is no room for self-preservation. If you are hanging on to your own way as well as your “rights” and the privileges and perks you believe you are entitled to, you will hate your life because you are living for yourself. When we are in a self-gratifying mode, all the things we think will meet “our need” never do, and we always end up disappointed, discontent, and fretful. Ask yourself these questions: Am I trying to get some need in me met by my children? Do I have any goal or expectation outside of Jesus? Am I ever thinking about what I want? Someone who practices denying themselves and laying down their life in order to truly serve others from a heart of love honestly does not walk around with strong preferences and a perpetual agenda. If you asked them what they need or want, they would probably wait on the Lord to find the answer.

If you find yourself frustrated in your day, it is because you have a blocked goal—something you set up and decided would happen, but it didn't. If you resist dying to your self-life, why won't you put yourself out of your misery and just go ahead and give up, surrender, yield to the Lord, and then learn to live this way? Whatever you are hanging on to is not worth it because it is keeping you from His life.

In describing a godly woman, Proverbs 31:18 tells us that “her lamp does not go out at night.” This scripture says to me that we are to be constantly available to our family, and we are never off duty, not even at night. We are wives, mothers, instructors, nurses, cooks, cleaners, teachers, and servants, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Some of you instantly feel your flesh's resistance to this standard, but others of you need to look at how practical “always available” is. Do you resent being woken up in the middle of the night? Do you ever view your children as an interruption to your life? Are you constantly hurrying your children on to the next season of life? Do you have very many things in your life that does not allow for your children to be with you? Are the “Mother's Day Out” programs appealing to you? Do you ever grumble, huff and puff, or roll your eyes when your husband asks you to do something for him? Are you one who puts off household responsibilities until you have first accomplished whatever it is you want to do? Are you a big phone talker? Are you a big computer chat-roomer or computer shopper or news buff? Do you allow the television or other people baby sit your children a lot?

I'd like to challenge you to an exercise that might help you see if you have embraced this “always available,” death to self, no rights way of living. Write down each of these questions from the previous paragraph in a notebook and then take each one of them before the Lord and possibly even an older woman who knows you well or any sister who is totally honest with you, and ask Him/them how they see you in these areas. Do not get upset with the Lord or anyone else who, by answering honestly, ends up confronting you. They may even show you other ways that they see that you have not died to self. Receive it and embrace it, and Jesus will change you if you simply repent (James 5:16). In the process of doing this, as you see other ways that you really do believe that you have rights—list them and boldly look at each one in the light of the scriptures and His way of love (1 John 3:16, Phil. 2:17, 2 Tim. 4:6-8, Rom. 12:1). A good place to start is to consider things like do you really have the right to leisure, or the right to a break, or the right to a good night's sleep? You get the idea.

Another aspect of us being constantly available is our being emotionally available to our family. What do I mean by this? If you are “tied up” on the inside by either being sad, confused, depressed, without peace, etc., then you are not emotionally available to serve and help with your whole heart. Likewise, if your house is immaculate and clean and your home runs like a well-oiled machine and yet your heart is backed up, detached, and distant from your husband and children, you are not emotionally available and your home is merely a beautiful empty shell. If “the heart of our husband is to trust in us” and our children are to lean on us, we need to be stable and have the Lord's life and love coming through who we are, and these things are found by abiding in Jesus. He can make you whole and give you strength. Get help from godly believers if you are stuck. If we live open and free, our children and husband will want to sink into that cozy, warm place that is our heart. Some fruit from living this way will be our being a “ready listener” (recognizing the need and stopping whatever is going on in order to listen) and a “good listener” (not butting-in, interjecting too frequently, or trying to immediately fix everything). And your family will love being close to you and talking with you, and they will feel like you are one of the safest places on earth.

So ask yourself: Am I ready any time of the day or night to listen, love, and serve my children? Am I a safe place for my husband? (Prov. 31:11)? Does my family trust me with the most vulnerable things of their heart? Do I make time for them—our just being together? My children would rather be with Matthew and me than anyone else. Just this morning, my oldest son put his arm around me and said, “Mama, you're a blast to be with. You're so enjoyable. Later, when I get home from work, can we go get some coffee drinks, just you and me?” I asked him if there was something specific he needed to talk about, and he said, “Not really. I just love being with you, and talking, sharing, and of course laughing.”

Unfortunately, a lot of well-meaning Christians, in their effort to comfort, counsel, or “be understanding,” of the hard work of mothering have [indirectly and directly] encouraged many women in the self-preserving, independent lifestyle that is the worldly norm. I would like to uncover a couple of lies that are taught virtually everywhere and sadly embraced as truth, even by Christians. Again, remember that the enemy has an agenda and it is to cripple you, steal from you, destroy you, and kill you—and the ones you love (John 10:10). Many of his destructive inroads are made by getting us to believe lies, and these particular lies are now “standard fare” in our culture and are still gaining in popularity, so be on guard.

 

• One lie is that you can do it all. You can see this lie in women who work outside the home and confidently declare, “I can have my career and be a devoted mother.” The fallacy of this is obvious, but some of us still show signs of believing this lie by trying to keep up a lifestyle that is not conducive for children or being a keeper at home. Home is your domain (Titus 2:4-5). Of course we have to do things like buy groceries and be out a little bit, but if you are not a “homebody” who loves being home then things are not right. Start with looking at how your days are spent and if you run around a lot. If God has called you to be a keeper/worker at home but you spend most of your time out and about, then how do you reconcile this? What are you believing that allows for this contradiction? What are you making a place for? Are these things God has called you to? Are you avoiding death to a fun lifestyle, a free lifestyle, a busy lifestyle, an independent lifestyle, a worldly lifestyle, an entertainment lifestyle etc.? Sisters, you cannot be a devoted keeper at home who joyfully meets the needs of her family if you have “a lot of brands in the fire” that are activities outside of (away from) the home. Most of the ladies I have known who get confronted with their busyness outside the home tend to be very defensive about what they are doing with lots of justifications and rationalizations. Remember, whenever we are defensive, it means that we have something to protect. In this case there is a strong possibility that “rights,” self-gratification, or holding on to a lifestyle that is “not fitting” with godliness, and this is what is being protected.

• Another lie is that “quality of time,” not “quantity of time,” is all that really matters. Quality time with our families is vital, but quantity (lots of time) is a must if we are going to properly serve our husbands, prepare our children for their futures, love them all well, do everything that is needed in our homes, etc. All of these things take an extraordinary amount of time. Remember, being a “keeper at home” by God's standard will cost us everything, and I believe this is part of His divine plan for what we women need in our sanctification. If you have people telling you that being a wife and mother really does not take that much, I strongly encourage you to put your fingers in your ears and run away from them as fast as you can.

Consider this analogy: Let's say that I want to improve my health by changing my diet, but in my approach to this, I believe that quality of food is all that really matters. So I then decide that on Monday afternoons and Saturday mornings I will eat all raw vegetables, drink freshly made carrot juice, and take the highest-quality vitamin and mineral supplements available at the health food store. For the rest of my meals, I am going to eat greasy burgers, super-size fries, pizza, and candy. Do you think my approach will work? Do you think my health is going to improve? Big deal that I had had quality food for those 2 meals a week—ultimately it does not do me any good. I need quality food, yes (I'm not implying that is has to be raw vegan), but if I do not have that quality food in great quantity—i.e., most, if not all the time—then I should not expect to see good results.

So many parents feel guilty for not having much family time so they try to buy their way out of this “family intimacy deficit” by extravagant gestures towards their children. You know, the toys, prizes, treats, trips to the ice-cream shop, movies, bowling, going to the park, etc. These things give a false sense of connectedness and family cohesion, and without real, daily relating they are hollow and cheap counterfeits. Serving our families is actually very simple—it's just our constantly being there, loving, and laying down our lives for them. But it will make your flesh hurt because you have to often and continually deny yourself to truly be able to “deliver the true goods.” The Lord's way is not man's way (Is. 55:8-9, Matt. 16:23, Gal. 5:16-17).


When we draw from the life of the Holy Spirit, laying down our lives and serving our families is a wonderful and joyful experience, but it is also physically exhausting when you feel your life being spent. After a good long day of loving, being “emotionally available,” and doing all the things we have to do, we will sleep quite well at night. The Lord gave me a vision about 20 years ago and in it, I was at the end of my life, having spent everything I had. I was tired and utterly exhausted, and yet completely fulfilled. He has spoken to me so many times throughout my life that following Him and being ready for Him is all about being burned up, sold out, and giving everything. So let's ignore our flesh's cries for relief and instead say yes daily to yielding to Him and dying to self so that His wonderful, abundant life can be manifested in and through us to our families.

 

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