Motherhood is a special gift, one with a great deal of pressure and responsibility. How does a Christian mother navigate the expectations and influences of the world while honoring her family and the Lord?

Protect Your Relationship With God

I love the story of Susannah Wesley. She had 19 children and yet managed to put God first. When she needed to spend time alone with God, there was no place in the house where there weren't kids. So she would sit down on the chair in the kitchen and pull her apron up over her head and pray to God in her own quiet little sanctuary.

She must have been familiar with Matthew 6:33, which says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." For God is faithful to provide for our needs when we seek him above all else.

In the midst of all the challenges, find a way to keep your personal relationship with God first. And this is true no matter where you are in life. No matter how stressful it may be, find a sanctuary. Find a few moments of quietness. When you go through difficult times, being plugged into the one Source of strength you can count on makes all the difference (John 15).

Power of a Praying Mom

Devote your heart to God and then pray for your children. When you pray for your children, God will do wonderful things.

One of the great stories from history about a praying mother is about a woman named Monica. Monica was the mother of St. Augustine, one of the great church fathers. For more than three decades, Monica prayed for her wild and wayward son. She followed him to Carthage. She followed him to Rome and to Milan, weeping and pleading, and assaulting heaven with perpetual missiles of prayer. Augustine recounts her faithfulness in praying for him in these words: "Thy hands, O my God, and the hidden design of thy providence did not desert my soul and out of the blood of my mother's heart, through the tears she poured out day by day and night by night, there was a sacrifice offered to Thee for me, and by marvelous ways, Thou didst deal with me."

At last, under deep conviction, Augustine retreated to a friend's villa in Milan. He wanted to become a Christian, but he didn't want to relinquish his immorality. He wrote once in his writings, "I was still tightly bound by the love of women." But while wrestling with these things in the garden, Augustine suddenly heard a nearby child singing, "Take up and read." There was a book lying nearby, and he said, "I snatched it up and opened it. And in silence I read the paragraph on which my eyes first fell." And it was Romans 13:13-14, which read as follows: "Behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts" (version unknown).

Augustine said, "I read no further, for I did not need to. Instantly, the sentence ended, there was infused into my heart something like the light of full certainty, and all the globe of doubt vanished away. Then we went to my mother and told her what happened, and to her great joy, we explained to her how it occurred, and she leaped for joy triumphant, and she blessed God who is able to do exceeding abundant above all that we ask or think."

Shortly after her son's conversion, Monica died, saying on her deathbed that her life's work was over, but her son's work was only beginning. St. Augustine went on to shape all subsequent Christian history, writing more than 1000 works, including 242 books, and giving us this remarkable account of a prodigal son and his praying mother.

You may think that your children are out of reach, and prayer is your last resort. But prayer is the greatest resource God has given to us! You can do more for your children after you pray, but you cannot do more for them until you pray. I encourage you to develop a relationship with Almighty God and learn how to pray for your kids as a first line of defense—even when they are adults.

If you want to get through the challenges of motherhood, start at the throne of God by offering up your children in prayer to Him.