When I was a young mother with an overflowing stroller, accustomed to strangers counting my children aloud, I could not have been more aware that this particular kind of fruitfulness was not generally admired in the world. I received vast amounts of godly encouragement from my husband, from the word, and from the church — but I was also very clear on why I needed that kind of encouragement.

Believing that what God says about children is true is not the same as living like it is true. As it turns out, this tremendous blessing of children that God sent into my life was the ground on which I learned the glorious truth that baskets full of fruit are heavy. Glorious, bountiful, fruitful, faithful living does not feel easy, carefree, relaxing, simple, or streamlined. The life of faithful mothering, it turns out, must actually be full of faith.

Dragon-Slaying Diaper-Changing

Mothers need to believe that the work we are doing is important, that it honors God, that it matters eternally that we do it well. And we need to remember these things when we are physically exhausted, emotionally frazzled, and spiritually thin. It can be hard to believe — in the middle of a wild day of toddler life in your little home — that what you are doing is kingdom-building, dragon-slaying, gospel-proclaiming, glorious work.

“It can be hard to believe that what you are doing is kingdom-building, dragon-slaying, gospel-proclaiming, glorious work.”

The flesh wants to see the Cheerios and the sippy cups and the sticky floors, and it wants to wallow in feelings of not being seen or understood. The flesh wants to believe that what can be seen easily by tired eyes is the extent of the matter. This is all. You, the bedraggled mother of all these dirty children, are wasting your life. You settled. You have been deceived, and now you are being shown to have been a fool with no ambition.

But the flesh, like always, is not on our side. It must be overcome by faith. It must not be listened to, put in an authoritative position, or believed.

Games We Play with Kids

I am sure that mothers throughout all of history have struggled with being discouraged, but our time is actually unique in the momentum that goes against the basic, faithful fruitfulness of Christian marriage. There were other eras when fruitfulness and fertility were still admired by the world. The flesh would not have needed to stand up to so much in that context, and the devil would have found other ways to keep women off task. But in this time, in our era, we are surrounded by a world that thinks it is inventing itself.

A young Christian couple can get married today and announce, without pushback, what their goals and dreams are. Essentially, this is our board game of life, and these are the rules we are playing with. Our goals are financial — we will view owning our own home as a reward. We want to plant for a life of leisure and harvest the blessing of relaxing vacations. In this world we think we are making, children would not be a blessing. They would not be a reward. They will not be our inheritance. We’ll probably choose a dog at some point. Success will be measured by our desires, and we will have done well when we have pleased ourselves.

But for Christians, we cannot imagine that we’re actually building this world, or the rules. We are not planning out the purpose of our own life — God the Creator has done that, and he has given us his word. This is the truth about the real world, about what actually matters, about what we must value and pursue and believe and live for. God has already decided these things, and they are not up in the air for us to decide.

What God Calls Children

If you look to Scripture to tell you what to think about children, you will find a shocking contrast to the worldly thoughts that all of us have been marinating in.

Even those of us who have always been pro-life have nonetheless taken on some thinking that children are objectively an interruption, a burden, a difficulty — unless you decided you wanted one like the world wants a pet. We have still thought the barefoot pregnant woman in the kitchen is a little lowbrow. We have allowed the world to shape our understanding on the most fundamental things of life.

What we need more than anything is to marinate more deeply in the truth of God’s word, to let those unbelieving thoughts be driven out by reality. Because what God says is reality, and we cannot and should not want to opt out of it. God says,

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, and the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is that man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. (Psalm 127:3–5)

The modern Christian couple will shy away from almost everything in this passage. I don’t want that reward, thanks. I don’t care to be fighting with anyone, so this military language does not appeal. I’d prefer to not have a quiver of any kind really, much less one that is full of life. I don’t think that sounds like a blessing I want . . .

If you feel yourself shying away from the language that Scripture uses about children, know that what you are shying away from is blessing — God’s blessing. There is nothing in the world so heavy, so glorious, so desirable as God’s blessings.

Another Unexpected Blessing

Those first four children of mine that used to shock the world are now all taller than I am, all teenagers. It is easy for me to see the glory now. Proverbs 17:6 says that children’s children are the crown of the aged — and we are far enough into this parenting life to know that crowns are made out of things that take great effort. Gold that must be mined and refined in fire, precious stones that are found deep in the earth and cut and polished and worked until they can be set. Glory is heavy, like gold — but also like gold, it is real and precious.

“What God says about the world is reality, and what the world says about him is nothing but a mist.”

God has blessed us with a surprise pregnancy this year, a baby number eight — and while being pregnant at 41 was never one of my plans or ideas, I am deeply grateful. I know from the inside out that what God says about children is true and real. And when people are inclined to look at me with my pregnant belly like I am the dot on a wild exclamation point, I agree with them. This exclamation point is needed, because it follows after a testimony that God is faithful. He is merciful. He is doing great things for us.

Our God is the living God, the one who spoke all of reality into existence. What he says about the world is reality, and what the world says about him is nothing but a mist.

I have been a homemaker for over eighteen years now, and I feel confident saying it is a difficult and demanding job. What is more, it is a job with a massive PR problem. “It’s a soul-crushing grind!” some say. Others ask, “Do you work?”

Public opinion on the nature of homemaking has not been subtle. For a generation at least, homemaking has been spoken of as a prison-like existence that stifles a woman’s gifts — as though homemakers have less ambition than others, less ability, less scope, less understanding. This propaganda effort has been radically effective, shaping the imagination of many women who find themselves at home for one reason or another. It takes little effort to see our calling and the work therein through the lens of resentment.

Lately, there has been some pushback to the public opinion that homemaking is a life of boredom and ease, but it has been of the worst kind: long-faced social-media posts bemoaning how no one appreciates your work; TikTok videos telling everyone that because your family failed to notice the work you did, you feel invalidated as a person. This too is the fruit of worldly propaganda — and it too will have devastating effects.

Homes in the Great War

Homemakers often find ourselves without support — not physical support, the absence of which is so loudly reflected on, but rather the spiritual support of understanding why this field of work is glorious, worthy, essential, God-honoring, and strategic. We need an understanding of the value of the home that is strong enough to endure the tumultuous cultural winds around us. We need to see clearly how we are serving God in and with our work.

“The Christian home is an essential work of the Christian resistance.”

The Christian home is an essential work of the Christian resistance. In any war, it is customary to target your enemy’s supply lines, manufacturing plants, and headquarters. In our spiritual war, the Christian home is all of those things. Why then would it surprise us that the enemy would like to see the home destroyed? Why are we surprised by the obstacles we face — by the threefold resistance of the world, the flesh, and the devil?

We have been cleverly fooled into thinking that the obstacles we face at home are due to the work being unimportant, insignificant, unappreciated, or mindless. We should have noticed that anything under such attack from both without and within must be desperately important.

Beautiful or Embarrassing?

You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;     you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.Your wife will be like a fruitful vine     within your house,Your children will be like olive shoots     around your table.Behold, thus shall the man be blessed     who fears the Lord. (Psalm 128:3–4)

Scripture is the basis for my commitment to being a homemaker, and if I never saw any other reason to love it, never saw the fruit, never understood the importance of the role, that should still be enough. Paul lays out the importance of older women teaching younger women to be “self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled” (Titus 2:5). And Proverbs 31 describes a glorious picture of the woman who is clothed in strength and dignity as she gives herself to the needs of her household.

At this point, some readers may have rolled their eyes because I mentioned Titus 2 and Proverbs 31 in the same embarrassingly uncool paragraph. Why is that? Could it be because you have been trained to despise passages like these? Could it be that you have listened to countless people explaining them away? Could it be that you have taken in enough worldly propaganda that you feel free to look down on the tone of the word of God and those who embrace it?

I am asking you to consider that perhaps you have been played. You have been had. You have welcomed the lies of the world into your home and given them authority in your life. To say, “Women, be self-controlled, pure homemakers who love your husbands and children” is to speak a biblical, God-fearing statement. I am asking you now to listen to your own heart’s response to that. Is your heart bridling? Is it angry? Are you ready to post angry comments on my ignorant or backward ways? Well, think about what you are doing — it’s not me you are despising, but the words of God. What does your response say about where your heart is?

Harvest of Homemaking

I say that raw obedience to God’s word is enough, and in a sense it should be. But it is far from all that we are given. When I read those sorrowful monologues about the mental load, about how much it all weighs on the poor woman, about how unfair it all is, about how husbands should be responsible for far more housekeeping, all I can see is that women are suffering from the horrible pairing of trying to do the Lord’s work with the attitude of those who hate him. There will be no joy of obedience there. There will be no fruit of free giving there. There will be no strength and laughter and dignity there, because there is a thick fog of accusation, discontent, and envy.

“The end of all our small daily plantings may be a harvest of staggering beauty.”

I have come to realize through the years that the countless tasks I do that no one notices still shape our home and the people in it. Every meal I lay on the table is a small picture of the feeding of the five thousand. My meager offering, broken in the hands of Jesus, will feed generations of children. This home — the flavors and the smells and the atmosphere of love — will by God’s grace shape people who will go on to be the mothers and fathers of thousands. Is there any other work I could be doing that would be this exponentially fruitful or influential? A hundred years from now, I hope there are people who do not know my name or remember me, but nevertheless carry about with them seeds of faithful living that were first planted in the soil of this home.

Do you have the burden of a million duties on your mind? Ask the Lord to establish the work of your hands. He makes valuable all that is done in him, so ask him to do so with your messy duties. Rejoice in him as you offer yourself as a living sacrifice — a sacrifice that cooks and cleans and blows noses and folds clothes and lays a table and looks after the ways of your household. He is shaping something of great beauty and strength that is far beyond our own capacity to imagine. May God give us all eyes to see it, and hearts to imagine it. The end of all our small daily plantings may be a harvest of staggering beauty.