Danielle Finch explores the highs and humbling lows of motherhood, sharing how each season, whether joyful or challenging, has drawn her closer to God.
Motherhood is a joy and a blessing and is something I longed for. Psalm 127: 3 teaches us that “children are a gift from the Lord”, and I fully believe this. Yet motherhood has proven to be more challenging and refining than I could have ever imagined.
As an expectant mum, I naively hadn’t anticipated the challenges I would face and how they would deepen my reliance on God.
As an expectant mum, I naively hadn’t anticipated the challenges I would face and how they would deepen my reliance on God. I simply looked forward to baby snuggles, milky smiles and first steps. In my bubble, I didn’t spend time contemplating that they would slowly become their own person, with their own struggles. Perhaps it was for the best, as the Lord has led me by the hand into the unknowns of each season of parenting. One foot in front of the other. As he will for you too.
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I am now out of the trenches of raising very little ones. My health declined significantly after giving birth to my children and I was not prepared for how physically demanding raising littles ones is even for an able-bodied woman. Bending over and changing nappies, breastfeeding, navigating car seats and attempting to keep your toddler safe as they decide to have their 5th tantrum of the day on the supermarket floor. All of this whilst being chronically sleep deprived.
I wish I could say that I simply sought God’s strength each day to help me through and found joy in all of the little moments. Some days I did. Yet on reflection, I actually feel that I learned far more about humility during those early years than anything else. Any facade of ‘having it altogether’ was shattered. Yet God pursued me with his love and grace when I struggled to show those things to myself. And he showed up in the family and friends around us who loved us and served us so well.
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In many ways, parenting has become far easier as my children have grown. With less physical acts of care required, I am more able to enjoy other aspects of parenting. I had become comfortable with the idea that the hardest years were behind me. Yet this year, I have come to the realisation that even though the challenges may look different, motherhood will continue to grow me and deepen my reliance on the Lord throughout the rest of my life.
I have come to the realisation that even though the challenges may look different, motherhood will continue to grow me and deepen my reliance on the Lord throughout the rest of my life.
One of my children has had a particularly challenging year with regards to mental health and a new diagnosis. Everything in me has wanted to go back in time, wrap them in my arms, wipe away their tears and make everything better like I would have done when they were tiny. Yet even in this, God has continued to show me what it means to rely on him. To entrust my children to him because really, they have been his all along. As I see their teenage years on the horizon, I have been thinking about the sort of pressures that they will encounter in the world. My human nature finds me wanting to protect them from every evil. But the reality is, they will both experience heartache. This journey of letting them find their own way in the world is God-ordained. I’ve come to the conclusion that the very best thing I can do for them as their mother, is to point them to Jesus and hold them up in prayer to the Father who loves them more than I ever could.
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Over the last decade, I have so appreciated the support of those women who are further along in their motherhood journey, who have been able to pass down their wisdom. As well as those women who have sat by me and prayed whether they have children or not. God has not called us to a life of isolation, he has given us a beautiful community in our female friends to lift us up and encourage us through each season of parenting.
My prayer for us all is that we would recognise the refining power of God working in us and that we would know his faithfulness more fully as we entrust our children to him through every stage of their lives.
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