# 10. Good Motherhood Defined
We’ve been looking from various angles at some of the boulders which block motherhood. Misunderstood duty, inadequacy, confusion about happiness, underestimating the value of goodness; the disfigurations which come from our disorder with God. We’ve been scouting out the terrain from a distance. Soon, we’ll be getting closer, trying to find our way over some particular surfaces. Before we do, it’s helpful to pull together a definition. You’ve probably already picked this up by now, but it can’t hurt to make it plain:
Good motherhood loves and pursues what God says is good
in the situation the mother and her children are in.
This definition is not only true for Christians. God made the world and sustains it, giving good gifts to all his creation, showing kindness to people who love him and those who don’t. We can appreciate the benefits of traveling in a plane while being ignorant of how it gets (and stays) in the sky. Goodness is the same. People who do not acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus still benefit from his good rule. People who are out of relationship with their Maker still bear a cracked reflection of his image. This means they express some of God’s goodness in his world, sometimes better than Christians do (and that’s no wonder, since Christians believe this). There are mums who love and pursue a lot of what God says is good, even though they don’t acknowledge the God behind it all. But only a Christian will enjoy the Source and Goal and Sustainer of goodness. A Christian is transplanted out of their own deadness, into the life of Christ. Jesus grows goodness in his people. Only a Christian has the confidence that God is making their withering grass something more permanent. Goodness without God is a brief shadow.
Our resurrected relationship with God the Father, which Jesus has paid for and which the Holy Spirit brings about has an effect. The gospel brings our love for God alive. Loving God means learning to love all that he loves. These new loves lead to a mother getting her relationship with her husband, children and creation into better order. As Paul said, knowledge of Jesus’ truth leads to godliness. A mature Christian mother will be pursuing what God says is good, in whatever she does, doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. That’s the maturity we’re aiming for. Good motherhood isn’t only getting to that destination, is all the little God-honouring, God-sustained steps along the way.
“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Colossians 3:17.
Good motherhood can happen even when the situation we’re mothering in is not good. We ask not, what is the good which could have happened if things had turned out differently? Not, what is the good I could do if I had made different choices ten years ago? Not, what is the good I could do if I didn’t have this chronic illness? Not, what is the good I could do if I lived on a farm and milked my own cow? Not, what is the good I could do if my husband hadn’t walked out? We ask what is the good God would have me do here? Now? And what are the possibilities for moving toward future good? Good motherhood happens when we grow in godliness where we are.
In Christ, a good mum is pursuing what God says is good in a way which helps her husband (if she has one) and her children do the same. This is not abstract godliness, some untainted psychological state, vacuum sealed from the rest of the world. It’s godliness in relationships, lived in time and space. Godliness expressed in bodies, to the persons whose bodies we are most closely bonded with.
As God designed it, no one else in the world is so physically connected to a woman than her husband and their children. God made the two one and out of that oneness the children come. This connectedness comes with responsibilities and influence which are unlike the duties and opportunities of any other (more physically remote) relationships. It’s a goodness which can’t be separated from sex and pregnancy and birth and feeding and toilets and kitchens and laundries and money and play. It’s seen, spoken, heard, smelled, tasted and touched. Godliness is not disembodied. This proximity means a mother is uniquely positioned to help her husband and their children grow into Christ-given goodness.
The opposite of helping is hindering. It’s far too easy to do that. (We’ll be thinking more about helping in future articles). The less we are in close physical proximity to these people, the more limited the good we can give. A lot of our hindering comes from not being in the right place at the right time, with an eagerness to do good.
Like it or not, mums are a hinge swinging goodness and happiness into and out of our homes. The thought is a bit terrifying, isn’t it? Dads and kids are too, in their own ways, but I’m not writing for them. When we withhold some of the good we owe our husband and kids, we make their growth in godliness more complicated and less joyful (in the same way that when a husband doesn’t do a good job of his responsibilities, being his godly wife is more difficult). This proves rather than disproves the complex connectedness God has given us. What we spend ourselves on actually has an impact on our husband and children. If pursuing God-defined goodness is not our ambition, we will be hindering our familys’ experience of God’s goodness.
When we start seeing and savouring the depth and breadth of all the goodness Jesus brings us into, we realise that we’ve moved out of a shoebox into a palace. The neglect of goodness narrows our enjoyment. In growing our eagerness for good, God is not depriving us. He’s giving us more.
