“Something is stabbing me in the back!” I yelled at my husband. When he didn’t jump to his feet to dislodge the knife, or the needle, or whatever else had impaled my spine, I screamed to him again: “Help me! I’m being stabbed!”

Eyes wide, he turned to the nurses. What was wrong with me? Should he do something? Careful to avoid my line of sight, both women shook their heads. One leaned in, whispering, “She’s just in labor.”

No New Pain

No small amount of aches and pains accompany pregnancy, labor, and delivery. From the usual symptoms, like nausea and fatigue, to the more surprising ones (no expectant mother really expects to start having dental troubles), to the contractions that shock the bravest of husbands, childbearing confronts us with the reality of mankind’s rebellion and God’s just response.

We ask pregnant women, “How are you feeling?” from weeks one to forty and beyond because, Christian or not, everyone knows that having babies is hard. Even today, in the age of germ theory and prenatal care, medications, and C-sections, mother and child alike can still lose their lives in any trimester. Given the choice, I suspect many moms would opt for the ER over L&D. Pregnancy can be that terrifying, and labor and delivery that excruciating.

Christian moms know why: Genesis 3. Sin entered the world, and the word’s sinless Creator responded. To Eve he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children” (verse 16). When our first parents looked for life apart from God, the one to whom they owed life itself, he rightfully declared that bringing forth life would now be painful — and, in the end, futile (verse 19).

And though the curse’s effect on childbearing makes a debut in Genesis, the Bible abounds with allusions to its intensity. The apostle John describes the “sorrow” and “anguish” that a mother feels while giving birth (John 16:21), and Paul himself uses labor to convey his torment over the Galatians’ stunted spiritual growth (Galatians 4:19). As Micah 4:10 puts it, “Writhe and groan, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor.”

Without an epidural (and sometimes even with an epidural), “writhe and groan” is right. Sin hurts, and an expectant mother duly cries out — indeed, all creation echoes her pain (Romans 8:22). Nurses say, “She’s just in labor,” because that’s how childbearing works in a fallen world.

Even so, we do well to remember that the curse isn’t the only thing coursing through pregnancy, labor, and delivery. If we look closely not only at Genesis 3 but also Genesis 2, we’ll see that mankind’s rebellion did not speak the loudest, most lasting word in the garden. Grace did.

Grace Begets Billions

Have you ever seen estimates of human history’s birth rates? Flash back to America’s founding in 1776, and you’d find 13 colonies and less than 3 million colonists to fill them. As of today, more than one hundred times that amount call the country home. Then step back and consider the entire planet. Before 1900, Earth contained less than 2 billion; today, over 8 billion people. In 2023 alone, 134 million babies let out their first cries in hospitals and houses around the world. In a word, since God breathed creation into existence, we can only begin to imagine the number of newborns who’ve taken a breath.

“Christ’s death makes new life worth conceiving, new life worth carrying, new life worth delivering.”

On the basis of Genesis 2, however, how many babies ought there to be? When God set Adam among Eden’s luxuriance, he invited him to eat of every tree but one. The day that tree should be tasted — that day, God warned, man would die (Genesis 2:17). Creation’s first people would be creation’s last people, and never would Adam and Eve enjoy the blessing of filling creation with more people. So, on the basis of Genesis 2 alone, how many babies ought there to be? Zero. Not one.

But because God’s person and plan — not our sin and rebellion — is the surest basis of creation’s story, an unimaginable number of babies have been born. The Bible has more than three chapters, the Earth more than two people, because the God who justly punishes is also the God who abundantly pardons (Exodus 34:6–7).

When Adam and Eve sinned, God did not smite them on the spot. Instead, he sought the place to which they’d fled, asked questions, and listened (Genesis 3:8–13). He would cast them from his presence, curse their labors, and declare that death awaited them (verses 17–19). But for now, that day could wait. Adam and Eve still had life to live and babies to make because the God of grace would still have sinners for himself.

Since then, a mind-numbing number of people have followed Adam and Eve — a number to which you may be contributing. But that number should do more than make our brains hurt. It ought to electrify our hearts with praise. Your pregnancy, with all its difficulties, exists because the God who fashioned everything, from the largest nebula to the lightest newborn, is not only powerful and just but also gracious.

Why Babies Are Worth Having

The fact that human life even exists (let alone inside our own bodies!) should astonish us. But is it enough to sustain expectant mothers? When our bodies feel crushed by the curse’s physical effects, when our minds remember that death calls for both us and our babies — what then?

Genesis comes to our aid once more. If at first chapters 2–3 depict God as death-denier, they likewise reveal him as death-destroyer. In the very moment that God cursed creation, he also promised a means for its restoration. From Adam and Eve’s offspring — the children that sin would have thwarted, the babies made possible only by grace — a Savior would come (Genesis 3:15).

The Bible has more than three chapters, the Earth more than two people, not ultimately because God still wanted to create people. No, he wanted to save people. He had shown his glory as Creator, and he would show his glory as Redeemer, as Father. His Son would take on human flesh, trample Satan, sin, and death under his feet, and deliver God’s children back into his arms.

We are privileged women. Eve bore children with sights set on the One who was to come; we labor in full view of the blood-stained cross where he hung. His death makes new life worth conceiving, new life worth carrying, new life worth delivering. For any mother and any child who believe in him, though they die, yet shall they live (John 11:25). The curse may linger on, but it’s as good as crushed wherever Christ is concerned.

Shining, Expectant Stars

Expectant mothers, do we believe this? The more we do, the more we’ll be able to groan beneath the curse’s weight without grumbling about it. Our babies have a chance not only to live but to rise. And as we wrestle to bring them safely into this fallen world, God promises to use our pain to help see us home (Romans 8:28).

The sovereign God of the universe chose your symptoms and set your due date before Earth had seen a single sunrise, and he did so with your good in mind. One contraction at a time, he will see you “conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29). He will be glorified in you, and you will be happy in him. Your sufferings will help to make sure of it.

Which means: First-trimester fatigue, spine-stabbing labor, second-degree tears? Yawn, nap, cry, clench, grimace — but do it “all . . . without grumbling” (Philippians 2:14). Gratitude, not grumbling, befits Christian moms. All three trimesters of pregnancy, every hour of labor, each week after delivery — as full of fear, discomfort, or agony as they may be, if you are in Christ, grace runs through them.

Remember this, groan without grumbling, and then “shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15) — a world that knows having babies is hard but neglects to praise the God who makes babies possible and worth having.

Once there lived a young boy who struggled to obey his mother. Now, you may be thinking, What a boring story. That boy is just like every other child. And so he was — except that he disregarded his mother’s wishes for a very particular, well-formed reason: his mother was a teller, never a shower.

“Eat less sugar,” she would mumble to him, a half-chewed chocolate muffling her voice.

“Stop using the iPad,” she would say, without bothering to look up from her phone.

“Finish your homework,” she would tell him, all while the dirty dishes grew from pile to peak.

“Go and get some exercise,” she would call upstairs, never much mounting the steps herself.

“Drink water, not soda,” “Eat fruits and vegetables instead of junk food,” “Choose sleep over media,” “Give thanks rather than complaining,” “Listen before speaking” — he heard her commands. But he never saw them.

Though his mother reminded him (nearly every day, in fact) that her instructions were “good for him,” over time the boy came to believe that her rules must not have been very good at all. For if they were actually good, she would have done more than say them. She would have lived them.

Regrettably, I’m sometimes not so different from the boy’s mother, especially in one area: submission to authority.

Words to Live By

In the spirit of Ephesians, I often pray our son would embrace parenting as given by God for his good. “Children,” Paul writes, “obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” But for as much as I herald Ephesians 6:1, I find it harder to heed Ephesians 5:22: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.”

One moment, I’m calmly explaining to our toddler that obedience to me as his mom, imperfect as I am, honors God — and the next, I’m unnecessarily quarreling with his dad. As I do, disrespect runs across my face, annoyance through my voice, and unbelief in my heart.

I can’t choose to trust God’s will for children while rejecting his will for wives. He breathed the Bible’s every word into existence (2 Timothy 3:16), and he calls all people — toddlers, seniors, boys, girls, marrieds, singles, husbands, wives — to “live . . . by every word” (Matthew 4:4).

Not just know every word (which would be wise). Not just tell others to obey every word (which is called for). But, first and foremost, live by every word for ourselves. And for wives, submission to our husbands, as the God-appointed head of our household, is one word we are called to embrace with our lives.

To be clear, embracing submission does not mean remaining silent. A submissive wife still speaks up. She asks questions, expresses concern, disagrees. She isn’t afraid to share her heart’s longings or spirit’s burdens with her husband, nor is she afraid to tell others of marital abuse. But what she does fear is a wife’s millennia-old temptation to rule over him whom God has appointed as her head (Genesis 3:16; Ephesians 5:23).

In the wider world, God commands both men and women to submit (Hebrews 13:17; Romans 13:1). But in the home, the call primarily rests on the wife — and therefore on the mother. Given how much time is spent as a family under that roof, mothers are in a unique position to teach children that God gives authority for their good — if only we ourselves believe it to be true.

How much more readily might young children submit to parents, to teachers, to church leaders, to governing authorities, and (we pray) to God himself, if they spent a decade watching Mom lean into Dad’s leading, seek to support his endeavors, respond with respect during disagreements — in other words, if they watched Mom happily submit to Dad?

Words of Life

When our hearts buck against submission, perhaps we forget that the words we’re called to live by are the words of life. I don’t mean words that better our physical bodies, increasing our lifespan on earth. I mean words that lead to bottomless joy in our souls, whether in life or in death, because they draw us ever deeper into our all-satisfying God (Psalm 16:11). The words this God speaks are “the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

“How honorably we treat our spouse communicates to little ears and eyes how seriously we take God’s word.”

Wives, how otherworldly it is that Ephesians 5:22 exists within the universe of John 6:68. Whatever society may shout, submission spells neither inferiority nor disgrace. No, when we lean into a husband’s leadership, we lean not ultimately into the ways and wishes of a sinful man. We lean into the perfect, life-giving word of God.

What an opportunity mothers have! Where the world would call the Bible archaic (at best) and oppressive (at worst), we can show our children that submission to God’s whole law makes Christians neither fools nor victims. It makes us happy, abundantly so.

Words He Lived

Granted, we may not always feel happy as we submit. Voluntarily yielding to another is a demanding act of self-denial — the kind of act that Jesus says is the stuff of true disciples: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). But he also tells us that death to self is the stuff of real life: “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:24).

When a wife presses into the most difficult aspects of Christian obedience, her life will shout to her sons and daughters that Jesus is telling the truth. In the Christian life, spontaneously “feeling like” doing something is not a prerequisite for actually doing it — trusting God’s promises is. And his word assures us that self-sacrifice, as strenuous as it may be in the moment, is the mainstay of unshakable joy. How meaningful might the lesson be for children if they not only heard mom say it but watched mom live it?

And there is only one way sinful mothers can: through Christ. He does not just demand we deny ourselves; he denied himself the splendors of heaven to do his Father’s will (John 6:38). He does not merely command we take up our crosses; he took up his own cross “to the point of death” (Philippians 2:8). And he does not simply wonder whether losing your life will lead to gaining your life. No, even now — even as you read this — he is enjoying the fruits of his sacrifice. The tomb is empty, but the right hand of God is not (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus sits there in glorious joy. And from there, he has given us his Spirit to empower similar acts of seemingly impossible obedience (John 15:26).

That’s how mothers live the words of life before the eyes of their children — by looking to the Christ who already lived them. When submission feels like a cross, that doesn’t prove submission wrong. It proves submission biblical, Christlike, and life-giving, in the upside-down way only a Spirit-indwelt believer can comprehend. And isn’t that the kind of Christian we hope our children will become someday?

Mothers Who Live

If there were ever a fly on the wall of marriage, it is our children. How honorably we treat our spouse communicates to little ears and eyes how seriously we take God’s word. Behind closed doors and Facebook posts, is the Lord of heaven and earth worth obeying? Our kids know our soul’s response by heart. They have been paying close, close attention to our lives.

Oh, let us not be the young boy’s mother. She heard, and she commanded — but she never did (James 1:22–24). And though she may have deceived herself, she did not deceive her son. He knew she didn’t really believe the “good words” she spoke. If she had believed them, she would have lived them.

Instead, let us be the mother of James 1:25. This mother “looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts.” This mother “will be blessed in [her] doing.” Her life will commend God’s commands to her children as words to live by — as words of life.

How many women, as we stand before the mirror, stand before women we find displeasing, even ugly? We think our hair thin, our skin splotchy, our shoulders sunken, our arms gangly. Even the smallest of body parts — ears, toes, molars — can chafe with critique. They are too pointy, too crooked, too yellow. Nearly every part of us could use more weight, or less weight, or a different shape or texture or color.

And how many women, as we lament the way we look, are pointed to Psalm 139 for help?

You formed my inward parts;     you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.Wonderful are your works;     my soul knows it very well. (Psalm 139:13–14)

Maybe you let your mentor in on a battle with body image, or searched for a resource on self-loathing, or lamented your size to a friend in passing. Whatever the situation, most of us know one response by heart: “But remember Psalm 139? You are fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s image! That makes you beautiful. So stop believing you’re not beautiful, start believing you are beautiful, and those problems you have with yourself will begin to go away.”

Of course, trusted counselors and solid resources will put it more gracefully and offer additional truths from Scripture. But perhaps more often than not, we’re told (and we want to be told) that our body-problems are beauty-problems. If only we could grasp how beautifully God created us and now sees us! Surely then the storm clouds of self-despair would fade before bright skies of self-esteem.

But how many women know they won’t?

Needy for More Than Beauty

It isn’t wrong to point women to Psalm 139:13–14, to declare who made them, and then to assure them how beautiful they are because of it. His glory does flood every atom of creation (Psalm 19:1), and the atoms of mankind distinctly bear his image (Genesis 1:27). Women are beautiful indeed.

Even so, the counsel moves too quickly away from God to be of lasting help. Sometimes we mistakenly believe, as Ed Welch writes, that “God’s job is to make us feel better about ourselves, as if feeling better about ourselves were our deepest need” (When People Are Big and God Is Small, 20). But thinking better of ourselves spreads as thin and short-lived a balm over our weathered souls as concealer over blemishes. The day ends, and with one swipe of a washcloth every blotch and bump and wrinkle reappears. Self-despair rears its self-focused head once more.

Because ultimately, a woman’s problem lies not in small thoughts of herself, but in too little thought of her Creator. And the solution is not to think better of her appearance, but to dwell upon her God. Women were made for everlasting worship, not daily doses of self-worth.

“Women were made for everlasting worship, not daily doses of self-worth.”

And in fact, Psalm 139:13–14 — the very passage to which we may turn for self-esteem — offers a more soul-satisfying solution to our body-struggles. Rather than using King David’s words to navel gaze, let’s contemplate the glory of God saturating these verses. He is creative, he is powerful, he is near — and he is absolutely able to so amaze us with himself that we no longer need to be beautiful. We will be too busy worshiping.

Praise Him for Inward Parts

We often turn to David’s words when we struggle with outward appearance. But have you ever noticed that the verses actually center on the parts of us we cannot see?

You formed my inward parts;     you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. (verse 13)

God did form our faces. He did knit together every strand of hair. But what kind of Maker is this, whose hands have woven “all things . . . in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible” (Colossians 1:16)?

If beauty is skin-deep, God’s creative power is not. The human body contains “an unimaginable wealth of detail, every point of it from the mind of God” (Derek Kidner, Psalms: 73–150, 503). The next time we stand before the bathroom vanity pinching our stomachs, what would happen if we closed our eyes, took a deep breath, and praised God for making our kidneys? By God’s grace, humans have created thousands upon thousands of medical technologies. We have yet to make a single kidney.

Psalm 139 reminds us that we serve a God who has made billions — and made them from nothing. Musicians make songs from notes they’ve learned, and woodworkers whittle away at lumber they’ve bought. But there is one Artist who was never an apprentice, and the only materials his creations require is the reality that He Is (Genesis 1:1).

And as Yahweh set about making you and me, he wielded his incomparable power with tenderness. He did not throw us together; he knit us together. He did not leave our formation to mere biological processes; he used our mothers’ wombs to bring us — exactly us — into the world. Before our first cry, he knew its pitch. For it was he who intricately wove our vocal cords into existence over the last forty weeks.

Praise Him for Every Part

With such a Creator in our sights, the need to look or feel a certain way fades. In its place stands outward-and-upward-facing praise:

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.Wonderful are your works;     my soul knows it very well. (verse 14)

Note how David doesn’t pick his body apart, only thanking God for the pieces he approves. He doesn’t say, “I praise you for the way I was made — except for my height. It would be a whole lot easier to praise you if it weren’t for my height.” No, he worships God for the way he’s made David’s entire person: “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” No feedback. No excuses. Just praise. For David, his whole body is indisputable evidence that God is worthy of worship.

For the God who forms our most invisible and inaccessible parts — knitting us together, cell by cell, organ by organ, in our mothers’ wombs — all his works are nothing short of wonderful. And though female souls may struggle to know it very well when it comes to ourselves, Psalm 139 exists that we might.

Praise Him — and Be Satisfied

As we praise God for his wonderful works, he gets glory, and we get joy. It will not be the fleeting pleasure of being pleased with our appearance (Proverbs 31:30). It will be the everlasting joy of the Christian who knows and loves the reason she was made: to praise her transcendent and immanent Creator God. Only his glory, and not personal beauty, can satisfy this woman.

Mysteriously enough, she will come to believe she is beautiful. She will believe it not because of what she finds in the mirror, but because her soul knows well that the God of the universe made her, loves her, died for her, rose for her, lives within her. So content is she with who he is for her in Christ that her spirit sits still, quiet, and beautiful before his eyes (1 Peter 3:3–4). The battle to believe ourselves beautiful cannot be won unless fought within the Greater War: the fight to find God more satisfying than anything else in creation.

Psalm 139 offers the kind of meditative medicine aching women most need. With its help, we can begin to comprehend the unparalleled creative power and intimacy of our God. And in grasping more of him, we set out on the (lifelong) journey of needing beauty less. There will be far too much of our Creator to see, understand, and enjoy to concern ourselves so much with ourselves.

Every year as summer approaches, the world hastens to embrace its warmth. Restaurant patios shake out their snowy dust, kids trickle back into parks, sunscreen appears in the checkout aisle, teenage lifeguards ready the pools, vacation ads become relentless — and the clothing departments transform overnight.

Oversized sweaters vanish; swimsuits now welcome shoppers. Spaghetti-strap dresses stand in place of trench coats, and short shorts overtake long pants. A flock of oddly named tops — crop tops, tank tops, halter tops, tube tops — sidelines the long-sleeve section. Weatherproof boots no longer necessary, strappy shoes (of questionable durability) line the shelves.

The first glimpses of summer often appear on in-store mannequins and online models. For Christian women, that glimpse often causes not only anticipation, but anxiety, as that nagging and perennial question emerges: How might we dress modestly?

Asking Questions Carefully

So, how might we dress modestly? Of course, true modesty springs from the heart’s disposition, not the closet’s contents, and extends well beyond the clothes we keep. As one author states, “The external signs of what we call ‘modest behavior’ — not bragging, not showing off your body too much — are ultimately signifiers of modesty, not modesty itself” (Shalit, A Return to Modesty, xxv).

At the same time, when the summer months roll around, a choice in clothing still stands between us and the sun. So, to answer the question, I often find myself asking another: Would it be wrong if I wore this? I imagine many women can relate. In the pursuit of modesty, we tend to censure our clothing for sin — which can be an immature approach. Though the Bible commands modest dress (1 Timothy 2:9–10), it doesn’t include a list of modesty dos and don’ts. Were we to hold up an outfit and ask Matthew or Peter to tell us yay or nay, godly or sinful, we may get little response. “Thou shalt not wear . . .” is, well, nowhere.

As a result of Scripture’s supposed silence, we can begin to define “modest” as “not too immodest” — not too much like the world. That’s when the tricky questions really start firing: Are these shorts too short? Is this shirt too revealing? Are these pants too tight? And so we sift through summer clothing racks, hunting for items that won’t look too much like the way the world dresses in warm weather.

As such, we place modesty’s meaning (and expression) at the mercy of the masses, whose sense of “too far” only seem to inch further away. The tendency is not unique to our age. As early as the second century, church father Tertullian addressed the issue, in a work suitably called On Modesty:

The modesty of which we are now beginning to treat is by this time grown so obsolete, that it is not the abjuration [the rejection] but the moderation [the restraint] of the appetites which modesty is believed to be; and he is held to be chaste enough who has not been too chaste. But let the world’s modesty see to itself. (2)

So long as society sets our standard of dress, “modesty” simply means being less immodest than others. But “let the world’s modesty see to itself,” advises Tertullian. How might we? Is there a way to leave the house knowing not just that we tried our best to avoid worldliness, but that we actively aspired to godliness? Don’t we long for more than looking good without feeling too bad?

Perhaps the apostle Paul can assist us. Though the Bible is quiet on wardrobe particulars, it is loud on wisdom principles. One in particular from 1 Corinthians may help us to wade into the summer with truth and grace, rather than imprudence or stress.

‘Is It Helpful?’

Throughout 1 Corinthians, Paul tackles a similarly sensitive topic for first-century Christians: food. What can they eat, and what can’t they eat? The Corinthian believers want to know. (Sounds familiar!)

“In what ways does the desire to wear what we want when we want rule over us?”

Though Paul responds to this tension multiple times, we’ll focus on what he says in chapters 6 and 10. In both places, he begins by quoting a maxim the Corinthians themselves held: “All things are lawful” (1 Corinthians 6:12; 10:23). In other words: No food is unclean. Because in the new covenant, “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person” (Matthew 15:11). So, what can they eat? In theory, anything.

Even so, that’s not the end of his response. Upon declaring all foods clean, he adds, “. . . but not all things are helpful.” Eating this or that food isn’t inherently sinful — but that doesn’t make it helpful. “Not wrong” doesn’t spell “automatically good.” Could the same be said of our clothing?

God’s word outlaws no outfits, but that doesn’t mean every outfit “helps” — benefits, profits, serves, encourages — ourselves and others. So, while the questions “Is it wrong?” and “Is it too [blank]?” tend to flounder around, maybe we can begin to anchor our dress in another direction: Is it helpful? Following Paul’s lead, let’s consider the helpfulness of our clothing choices in two areas.

1. Is it helpful for my soul?

Paul first mentions lawful-yet-unhelpful matters in 1 Corinthians 6. There, he equates helpfulness with what is personally profitable: “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything” (verse 12). In other words, we “help” our faith along only so far as we flee anything that seeks to dominate us — govern us, control us, dictate us — apart from God. What our hangers hold is no exception.

Do we fidget over how to appear expensive, or fit, or even perfectly unkempt? How much hold does an approving or affectionate glance have on our heart? In what ways does the desire to wear what we want when we want rule over us? If someone we respect and admire were to question our swimsuit choices, would we mutter to ourselves about “legalism,” or would we walk away from the conversation open to the notion? “Inward examination,” writes Kristyn Getty,

should not make us fearful. It is necessary as we seek to fix our eyes on Christ. We don’t keep the course of steadfast faith accidentally. It’s a costly path that requires diligence, repentance, and the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work. (ESV Women’s Devotional Bible, 1551)

If we value Christ above everything, then we will gladly consider whether any one thing (even our favorite dress) is competing for our affection. And when we do, we’ll grow in godliness and increase in joy. Happy is the woman who has no reason to pass judgment on herself for the clothes she buys, for she knows that her purchases proceed from faith, not fashion (Romans 14:22–23).

2. Is it helpful for my neighbor?

But dressing “helpfully” reaches beyond what bolsters our own faith. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul expands the meaning to include what is loving toward others: “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor” (verses 23–24).

When it comes to our clothes, we have the same freedom as Paul’s first-century readers. Neither dietary laws nor dress codes bind new-covenant Christians, no matter the era. But also like the early church, we have the same responsibility to use that freedom helpfully. “Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13). A proper response to our freedom in Christ, explains John Piper, is not simply to assert our freedoms.

No, that’s not the way a Christian talks. We ask, “Will it be helpful? Will it be profitable? Will other people benefit from my enjoyment of this?” . . . That’s the principle of love.

With great freedom comes great love toward God and neighbor.

But how does that love dress on Monday mornings and Saturday nights, in church and at the pool? We must answer for ourselves. What is helpful for me (as a Coloradan wife and mother of little ones, with long-standing battles against pride and envy) may differ from you. Only let both of us answer the question “How might we dress modestly?” in a way that lovingly, sincerely seeks others’ good (1 Timothy 1:5).

For pews and grocery stores alike brim with people God loves, people for whom Christ died (John 3:16; 1 Corinthians 8:11). Given the astounding lengths to which the Godhead went to save them, might we be willing to adjust the length of our shorts?

“The principle of helpfulness enables us to be serious about our clothes without being legalistic about our clothes.”

Perhaps we have a friend sensitive to her size. More than likely we have sisters in Christ, whether teenage girls or peers, looking to us as models for modest apparel. Remember likewise our brothers, who may battle against lust. Though never responsible for others’ sin, we should seek not to provoke it unnecessarily (1 Corinthians 8:13). Maybe a new acquaintance, an unbeliever, learns that we’re Christian, and because we dress so differently, this person wonders aloud about the God we say we serve — not just with our lips, but with how we look too.

From Heart to Head to Toe

If we’ll let it, the principle of helpfulness enables us to be serious about our clothes without being legalistic about our clothes. Humbly we stand before the mirror, asking God to reveal to each of us, as women with different temptations and contexts, how to dress helpfully.

The more we prize God’s gaze above the world’s, the more we will take every outfit captive to obey him (2 Corinthians 10:5). The desire to honor him with our hearts can’t help but reach from head to toe.

Together, may we become so enthralled with pleasing and proclaiming God that we care more about “good works” than fitting into current fashion (1 Timothy 2:9–10). Sometimes, perhaps even often, the two can coexist. But when they cannot, may we happily decline to dress like the times for modesty’s sake — which is to say: for God’s glory, our joy, and others’ good. Seen this way, “How might we dress modestly?” sounds a lot less like a nagging question, and a lot more like an invitation.

Sobs shook my body. Nurses couldn’t help but squeeze a shoulder, hand, or foot whenever they entered the hospital room. Eventually, I’d cried so hard for so long that one felt the need to say, “You’re going to be okay, honey.” She must have thought it was the abdominal pain, or the bleeding, or the impending surgery.

“I know,” I whispered. “But I miss our baby.”

Considerate as they were, the staff struggled to understand my sadness. Perhaps no one who refers to an unborn child as “remaining fetal tissue” really can. They seemed to look away in discomfort whenever my husband and I called our baby what our baby was: our baby.

But now our baby was gone, as were deep breaths and clear thoughts. Did I cause this? I should have gone easier on my body. Was it my sin? I’ve been so impatient lately, even harsh. Maybe if I hadn’t — maybe if I had . . .

Never had I entered a valley quite like this.

Our Greatest Need in the Valley

The mysterious sorrow, the frantic questions, the lingering pregnancy hormones. In the days and weeks surrounding miscarriage, a mother’s faith often sits under fire, as we ache in ways we so little understand. We lost our child — but who was that child? Girl or boy? Mom’s nose or dad’s eyes? We’ll never hear her first word, or know his favorite food, or teach her to read, or watch him run. Much of our pain is the pain of receiving a gift along with so little time to unwrap, hold, and love it.

In its place stand questions that, left unanswered (or answered only by our pain), can distance us from who God is for us in Christ. Instead of clinging to him as “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4), we can begin to wonder who he is, where he is, what he’s doing — and why it had to involve our baby never taking a breath. He whom we beheld as sovereign, good, and near to us the day we grasped a positive pregnancy test suddenly feels out of reach. We begin to cast him sidelong glances from afar. We had thought he was our good gift-Giver. Is he actually a cosmic and cool gift-Taker?

But the God whom we are so quick to doubt — he is quicker to respond. Throughout the ages, he put together a Book brimming with words not only true, but satisfying and strengthening. That is, a Book about himself. No matter how many our tears, mothers who take hold of its words can hold fast to God, eternal life, and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). Indeed, there is no other way through the valley of miscarriage.

When You Cannot See, Read

Like the mother who miscarries, the author of Lamentations was no stranger to loss. Babylon laid waste to Jerusalem before his very eyes. He saw attackers drag away children. He watched Israel’s rulers flee. He looked on as young and old groped for bread yet rose empty-handed, covered in the city’s ashes. When his eyes could take no more, he wept.

But even as his vision blurs and stomach churns, his mind holds fast to something far sturdier than Solomon’s temple: this.

But this I call to mind,     and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;     his mercies never come to an end;they are new every morning;     great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:21–23)

Though he swims in a sea of unthinkable grief, still he is able to reasonably say, “I have hope.” How? Because he has “this” — the truth of God’s unending love, mercy, and faithfulness — and because he calls that truth to mind. Whenever his pain rises up and shouts about who God appears to be in the moment, he directs his thoughts toward who God has revealed himself to be “from everlasting to everlasting” (Psalm 90:2).

“If we are not careful, wondering about God without talking with God can lead to wandering from God.”

Grieving mothers, how much greater is our access to truth and, through it, to our God? In the Bible, we can read the words God “breathed out” (2 Timothy 3:16) for us, each of which “proves true” (Proverbs 30:5) and “gives light” (Psalm 119:130). In his many sufferings, can you imagine the lengths to which Lamentations’ author might have gone to possess a single copy of the full Scriptures we have? Yet “this” was sufficient for his time of need. Might the entirety of the Bible be sufficient for us?

Though tears cloud our eyes, hormones our emotions, and sorrow our thoughts, we can arrive at truth and its only source, our God. For what we cannot see through the fog of loss and grief, we can read. Because of the Bible, there is no shortage of hope-restoring words to choose from (Romans 15:4).

At the same time, we are wise to spend what time and energy we have reading (and rereading) passages that address our darkest questions. Is God sovereign over miscarriage? If he is, what is he doing through it — and can he still be good in it? I wish I had space to respond. For now, I’ll leave you with the texts to which I turned (along with links to other resources that may serve you): Job 1, Isaiah 48, Psalm 91, Psalm 119, and Romans 8.

When You Cannot Pray, Repeat

Grief affects more than our ability to get truth into our minds; it can also keep us from getting truth out of our mouths in prayer. Upon parting with children we never cradled, fed, or dressed yet inexpressibly loved, we may feel little desire to address the One who either “didn’t spare them” or “couldn’t save them.” We tend to curl into ourselves, as we believe one of a hundred lies about God’s lack of interest or power.

Despite our unbelief, God stands ready to help through the Scriptures once more. In our most clouded moments, not only can we speak his word to ourselves, but we can repeat his word to him. When we do not have the words to talk to our Father, we have only to open the Book with a thousand pages’ worth of ways we might pray.

Lamentations 3:21–23 remains a fitting guide. The author, upon telling himself that God’s mercies “are new every morning,” turns immediately to address God: “Great is your faithfulness.” In the same breath, he draws truth in and then lets truth out and up as he turns it into prayer. And lest we think this was an easy task for him, consider the stanza he pens just before:

[God] has made my teeth grind on gravel,     and made me cower in ashes;my soul is bereft of peace;     I have forgotten what happiness is;so I say, “My endurance has perished;     so has my hope from the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:16–18)

No, he feels pain’s pull away from God and toward hopelessness just as we do. For despair often prefers to talk about God than to God, a habit suffering Christians must learn to resist. If we are not careful, wondering about God without talking to God can lead to wandering from God.

Scripture can return us to the tender speaking terms we once knew and now need, perhaps more than ever. Whether we turn a passage into prayer, as Lamentations’ author does, or pray a psalm word for word, or use one of the New Testament’s many petitions, God went to great lengths to ensure that grieving mothers could weep yet still speak to him. What love is this, that when we lack the words to say, he offers us his own.

Ever with Us

As we walk through the valley of miscarriage, our pain, when left to itself, will not be so kind as to reinforce a biblical view of God and suffering. Rather, sorrow will try to seize the upper hand on reality, bending our hearts into a posture of doubt, mistrust, or resentment.

But praise God, we need not feel, think, or even reason our own way back into his grip. His word open before us, we can read and pray a path across the valley. Though our stomachs will stop growing, and we’ll schedule no more ultrasounds for now, there is a way for us not only to withstand the loss, but to grow because of it: “by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

The valley we walk is not so low that God cannot get to us. Indeed, if we are in Christ, we need only open his word, and we will find that he is with us already: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Psalm 23:4). Together, mothers, we can push past what our anguish might want to what we know our anguish needs: communion with God through his word.

I grew up on grass and turf. What did kindergarten-me want to be? A professional soccer player. Where did I spend most evenings as a teen? My club’s soccer complex. How did I choose a college? Division I soccer or bust.

Eventually, my left knee would be the one to bust (twice), but not until I’d devoted nearly twenty years to the game. Looking back on the cotton-tee rec leagues, the pricey club seasons, the long-awaited college career, the coveted national team camps — I see, sharp as a whistle, how God used soccer to increase my wonder of him. But what I also recognize (more painfully than two ACL tears) is how little I guarded myself against sins common to sport.

For every chance to worship God through exercise and competition, there is just as great a risk that we will “love the world or the things in the world” (1 John 2:15). Surely, sports can inspire worship. But often even more so, they can divert our hearts from heaven, casting them instead onto the fleeting rewards of fitness or fame.

Whether you’re young and yet to blow out a knee, a backward-looking athlete like me, or the person who simply loves sports, let’s wonder together at the God enthroned above every beautiful game. And let’s beware together the dangers lurking behind all the practices and tournaments, the social media feeds and TV screens.

Embracing Frailty

We live in an era of “easy everywhere,” as Andy Crouch puts it in The Tech-Wise Family. At the flex of a foot, we can travel from Connecticut to California by car. Our thumbs wiggle, and a friend in the Netherlands instantly knows how we are. Press a button, turn a knob, and lights flicker, water spouts, food warms, pictures snap, books play, music stops, presidents speak, gifts and ambulances and flowers and repairmen arrive. Everywhere we look, life is easy.

Because we can accomplish much while moving little, we tend to see ourselves as masters over matter, rather than creatures under a Creator. The ease with which so many exist can obscure our need to receive “life and breath and everything” from the God who first made and now upholds us (Acts 17:25).

But there is something about dripping sweat and feeling faint, leg muscles refusing to move much faster than a brisk jog, that pushes us to acknowledge our dependence on something outside ourselves. Whether it’s water or electrolytes, a quick banana or half a pizza, fifteen minutes of ice or ten hours of sleep, a teammate or a surgeon, sports make us feel the kind of needy we always are.

Mindful Christians can turn the likes of wind sprints and long recoveries into opportunities for spiritual humility, as we remember that we are weak because we are creaturely — and created to submit our bodies, hearts, and lives to our Creator.

Searching for Fool’s Gold

Unfortunately, sports often rush us headlong in the opposite direction, tempting us to worship “the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25). When we watch LeBron James dunk, we may be more likely to exclaim, “He’s a basketball god!” than “How awesome is the God who made such an athlete!”

“Christian athletes fight an uphill battle to satisfy themselves in God alone, to pursue his glory alone.”

And that’s just the way the sports world would have it. College programs, ESPN, betting apps — what is “the glory of the immortal God” to them (Romans 1:23)? Usually, nothing more than a detour from the track on which they run: the worship of “mortal man.” As we engage with sports, we would be naive to think that they won’t make unending grabs for our gaze, our hearts, even our very persons, as “followers of [select one of a million players, teams, or leagues].”

The danger isn’t confined to leagues we stream on TV. Sports tempt us to worship ourselves alongside the games and elite athletes who play them. Because of the fall, anywhere we set foot, our sinful flesh starts digging for the fool’s gold of human glory. The rec center’s basketball court is no exception. Sports, whatever the scale, can stoke our millennia-old longing to sparkle in others’ eyes.

In my experience, athletes crave all kinds of self-exalting glitter. There’s physical dominance, which men tend toward, and then there’s physical perfection, more of a female problem. As we mold our bodies into one ideal appearance or another, we simultaneously wield them for other worldly ends, like winning for winning’s sake and success for man’s approval.

Immersed in an arena that not only values but requires physical fitness, Christians can be tempted to care more for the body than the heart — a mistake so common that God would issue a warning as early as three thousand years ago (1 Samuel 16:7). Centuries later, he would remind us again through Paul, “While bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8).

Along with the body, sports culture obsesses over here-and-now victory and applause. Christian athletes fight an uphill battle to satisfy themselves in God alone, to pursue his glory alone, to seek his kingdom alone, and to believe his word above every other: “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave” (Matthew 20:26–27).

Grasping the Unseen

While sports can distract us from spiritual realities, they can also expose them. Throughout his letters, Paul uses athletic imagery to illuminate unseen, eternal truths (2 Corinthians 4:18).

For example, in 1 Corinthians 9:24 Paul asks, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it [that is, eternal life].” When I read passages like this, I thank God for athletic competition. In the golden age of participation certificates and star-shaped stickers, we hear time and again that there’s no such thing as not reaching our potential. There are no losers, only people doing their best to be themselves (which, of course, they’ll succeed at being, what with no external standard to reach).

But as Paul reminds us, the Christian life is not the free 5k we like to know about but never run. No, the Christian life is the Pikes Peak Ascent, the Boston Marathon, the Summer Olympics. Meaning: to finish, we must run. And not only run but train, disciplining ourselves “that by any means possible [we] may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:11). As J.C. Ryle puts it,

It would not be difficult to point out at least twenty-five or thirty distinct passages in the epistles where believers are plainly taught to use active personal exertion, and are addressed as responsible for doing energetically what Christ would have them do, and are not told to “yield themselves” up as passive agents and sit still, but to arise and work. A holy violence, a conflict, a warfare, a fight, a soldier’s life, a wrestling, are spoken of as characteristic of the true Christian. (Holiness, xxiii–xxiv)

To say with Paul, “I press on to make [eternal life] my own” (Philippians 3:12) doesn’t mean that eternal life is earned. This life is graciously given. Even still, that does not make it a given. Like the most serious of runners, Christians race heavenward — Bibles in our hands, prayer on our lips, church by our side — because we know that fervent, frequent Godward movement confirms that he has already obtained us: “I press on to make [eternal life] my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”

How remarkable that we might perceive grace and faith more clearly, simply because Paul reminds us “that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:24). Some unseen things shimmer better when we sweat.

Competing Ends

Yes, we do well to look and move heavenward through our beloved tracks and fields. But as we do, we should again remember that athletics may actively hinder our ability to live like Christians. The players we watch aren’t pastors. Many coaches we play for don’t pray. By and large, sports culture is thoroughly, proudly, and profitably secular.

Which means it operates under its own moral code: win, usually at any cost. As believers who play or follow sports, we can struggle to resist the pressure to prioritize first place above honoring God and his word.

Imagine it’s the last five minutes of a tie game. Whether playing or watching, most unbelieving coaches, teammates, and fans want you to do or say whatever you can to get the win — even if it means disobeying God. We know he not only commands slowness to anger and self-control, but he also commends them as more rewarding than strength and success (Proverbs 16:32). Still, there’s a game on the line. So, from overly aggressive fouls to jeering at refs, as long as the behavior helps to take the win by might, your team and fans will likely applaud. After all, you’re just being competitive.

Oh, what Christians might communicate instead. What if we walked away without retaliating, faced defeat with calm and even contentment, and experienced sports as a gift meant to reveal the Giver? In doing so, we would express how incomparably pleasing it is to belong to God, not the game.

At their best, sports are an exercise in worship and witness. We have only to believe that Jesus is worthy in every loss and worth more than every victory (Philippians 3:8), and then train and play and watch and cheer like it.

“Oh, my. You have to pull over!” the woman pleaded from the passenger seat. “My head hurts.”

Her head hurt because my son was screaming his head off.

Rewind five minutes to when I first pulled up to her apartment building, towing a fussing baby. My one-year-old hates the car, but the ride to church is short (usually). This morning we took a detour, and he knew it. Complaints mounted to cries as we waited for the woman and her son to come outside.

She’s a single mom, and he’s a high school boy. They’re refugees, new to our country, culture, language, and (as I later realized) traffic laws. Neither of them has an American driver’s license, but what they do have is a church — our church. Just a few months back, when they took vows before the congregation and became members, others started coordinating rides for them each Sunday.

So there they were, in my car. And there we all were, listening to a baby wail at soaring decibels. His cries had become fever-pitch screams when two relative strangers, with skin far darker than mom’s or dad’s, opened the doors. I flung crackers and toys into the backseat, but there was only so much I could do while driving.

Then she had an idea: “Put him on your lap! Put him on —”

Before she could finish, her son began to protest, explaining how “they don’t do that here.” I nodded vigorously, even gratefully, as he spoke, my own voice wobbling between saying sorry and making shushing sounds. “Well, in our country,” she replied, “the police would pull you over. They would think you stole this child.”

Lost in One-Anothers

It’s far easier only to drive people you (and your shrieking baby) already know well to church. Just like it’s far easier only to invite like-minded people into your home, only to comfort or encourage those you understand, only to forgive the friends you want to keep around. It’s far easier — and far less like the “one-anothers” of Scripture.

Upwards of fifty times in the New Testament, we read of particular ways we are to treat “one another.” As our eyes speed over these commands — all the so-called “one-anothers” — our mind is quick to acknowledge two things. We understand what is commanded (verb), and we understand that it’s commanded of us (subject). We know we should

“love one another” (Romans 12:10),
“welcome one another” (Romans 15:7),
“[forgive] one another” (Ephesians 4:32),
“comfort one another” (2 Corinthians 13:11),
“serve one another” (Galatians 5:13),
“build one another up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11).

Without realizing it, though, have we missed the who at the end of each of these commands? Have we neglected to even ask who it is that God commands us to encourage, love, welcome, forgive, comfort, serve, build up? When we do not ask God to define “one another” for us, we slip into choosing those people for ourselves. And the people we choose tend to be the people we like. And the people we like tend to be the people like us.

But have we really obeyed the one-anothers when we apply them only to those we handpick? If we never stumble our way through the one-anothers, have we been obeying them, or have we simply been spending all our love on all our favorite people? Apart from that chaotic car ride, I can’t think of a time when it was truly difficult to press into the one-anothers. Never had my efforts to care for someone been met with so much misunderstanding, not to mention screaming. I began to wonder: Who are the one-anothers really — not as we make them out to be, but as God’s word presents them to us?

1. They are part of the (global) church.

The New Testament Epistles contain most of the one-another commands. In them, “one another” refers to fellow believers. Consider Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, where the phrase appears five times. Long before he says, “Greet one another with a holy kiss” (1 Corinthians 16:20) — that is, with certain affection — he tells us he’s talking to

those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours. (1 Corinthians 1:2)

The command is not given to Christians, “to those sanctified in Christ Jesus,” to apply to whomever they wish. Instead, Paul calls Christians to heed his words as “saints together.” And he doesn’t just mean the saints who live on nearby streets. He means “all those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Which means he’s talking to me, and you, and the Christian in Kolkata, India. Were we ever to meet, the three of us are to greet one another as saints together, as those who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ side by side, though several seas apart. Our mutual favor stems not from personal preference, but from our standing before God in Christ. One day he will greet us with pleasure, saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21). Warm welcome on earth anticipates the open arms of heaven.

Of course, we also should strive to apply many of the same commands to unbelievers far and wide. “See that no one repays anyone evil for evil,” says 1 Thessalonians 5:15, “but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.” At the same time, we do love the watching world when we love one another especially. When we visibly care for those within, we offer a glimpse of God to those without. The one-anothers extend a compelling vision of what it means to be “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).

2. They are a part of our (local) church.

“One another” ties all believers together, and then it anchors us in the local church. Look with me at a second one-another passage in 1 Corinthians: “When you come together to eat [the Lord’s Supper], wait for one another” (11:33). I imagine you and I (and especially our sister in Kolkata) do not stand in the same line for communion. How do we respond?

We aim this command — indeed, every one-another! — toward our local church in particular, the fellow believers in our weekly (even daily) midst. That’s why Paul begins his letter by addressing

the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours. (1 Corinthians 1:2)

Though we are “saints together” with Christians across all seven continents, we belong uniquely to “the church of God that is [insert the name of your church].” It’s here, among our local body of believers, that we park beside one another on Sunday, talk with one another as we walk inside, stand next to one another while we sing, bow by one another in prayer, and listen alongside one another to the word preached. Then we “wait for one another,” bread and wine in quiet hand.

And that’s just the Lord’s Day. God filled the church’s week with opportunities to devote regular time to one another. And these opportunities aren’t limited to a church building, but God plants individual members in particular neighborhoods, that we might open our doors to one another. We often talk about a local church’s “worship style.” Oh, that onlookers would say of our lifestyle, “One thing is sure: they never neglect to gather” (Hebrews 10:25).

3. They are every part of our church.

Even after we understand “one another” as fellow believers, and especially as those in our local church, we still often err while living out the commands. Whom do we gravitate toward, Sunday upon Sunday, after service? And whom do we seek out, almost exclusively, during the rest of the week? If the answer is only our dearest church friends, we have yet to hear the distinguishing mark of the one-anothers: love despite difference.

The words Scripture commands reflect the one Word pulsing behind its pages: Jesus. Apart from this Person, the one-anothers lack purpose and power. Upon whom does he lavish the one-anothers? Upon those like him, those he finds comfortable? Wonder of wonders, the answer is me. It’s you. In a word, it’s sinners. It’s rebellious, undeserving men and women. It’s fallen humans with whom the exalted Son of God had near nothing in common — that is, until he chose to humble himself, becoming one of us:

Though he was in the form of God, [he] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:6–7)

Who is “one another” to this Man? Not people like him already, but people he chose to become like. Not people he likes already, but people he committed to love “to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). Now he bids us, “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34).

It’s no small task, going out of our way to love brothers and sisters unlike us, saints we may struggle to understand, sometimes even to like. But this is the love Christ has shown us, and his love empowers us to do the same for others. So may that love wash over any selfishness or natural inclination in us, and may we plunge our preferences into what brings him pleasure: showing his steadfast, widespread love to one another.

There was a bucket of electric bouncy balls, not a baby, in my stomach. He just never stopped moving. Usually the jabs and kicks gave me comfort — “Call the doctor if you haven’t felt the baby move in a while,” they say. I had no reason to pick up the phone, so instead I came up with one that would keep me up all night.

“I wonder why he moves so much,” I said to my husband before bed. As he reached for the lights, I grabbed my phone. What does it mean if your baby moves a lot? I typed into Google. My stomach dropped as I read the first result: “High Fetal Movement Associated with Stillbirth.”

Like I said, I didn’t sleep that night.

Psalms and Search Engines

I wonder how many twenty-first-century tech-saturated Christian mothers, like myself, abide by their own translation of Philippians 4:6: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything let your requests be made known to Google.” When we remove prayer, supplication, thanksgiving, and — above all — God from the equation, we forfeit all chance of experiencing any lasting end to our motherly anxiety. We cannot type, scroll, click, and read our way to peace. There is no “peace of Google,” only the peace of God (Philippians 4:7). And for that, we must pray.

Which can be quite difficult for expectant mothers to do. Burdened for the children we cannot hold but deeply love, our minds tend to tumble down hypothetical rabbit holes: “How long has it been since the baby kicked? Shouldn’t the kicks be harder? Is the baby really growing? Am I eating enough? How much should I be eating?” Pounding heart, tight lips, it seems far easier to search, our fingers frantic, than to seek God in prayer.

That’s where the book of Psalms comes in. For millennia, restless saints have fled to its pages. When we lack our own words, enough calm, or even the desire to pray, the Psalms hand us hundreds of ways to talk to God. Consider, for example, how an anxious expectant mother might use Psalm 139 to pray for herself and her unborn child.

‘You See’

Because of the sheer fact that we cannot see our unborn babies, we often imagine what could be wrong. With the help of Psalm 139, we can turn from anxiety to adoration. King David’s words call us to wonder, rather than worry, over what man cannot see, as we praise God that his eyes keep watch over the children in our womb.

In the spirit of the psalm, we can begin by focusing on God’s omniscience over our blindness. “O Lord,” we might pray, “you have searched and known not only me, but also my child. You know when I sit; you know when my child stirs. You are acquainted with all our ways, from the words I will say soon, to the organ that will form next. In a word, your hand is upon us” (verses 1–5). What is dark to mothers — the womb, our unborn children, what lies ahead — is light to him (verse 12). Anxious about what we cannot see, we can adore the God who never stops seeing.

Nor has he ever not seen. His knowledge of our unborn children never began; it has always been: “Your eyes saw this child’s unformed substance an eternity before the pregnancy test came back positive. No part of this process has ever been hidden from your sight” (verses 15–16). As we say these words to our all-seeing God, we send them coursing through our unseeing selves. Wonder is a great antidote to worry.

‘You Are Sovereign’

Not only does God see what goes on within our stomachs and lives; he sovereignly oversees it all. We know we cannot watch our unborn babies grow, but that doesn’t stop us from thinking we can control our pregnancy, at least in some measure. That’s why we often flit from one search to the next — for control. We can praise God for so much access to life-sustaining information (it’s probably wise not to eat raw fish if every health institute says so), but we must not deceive ourselves. While we carry our children, God is in control of them.

Psalm 139 offers a fitting reminder, as David attributes action upon action, outcome upon outcome, to God alone. With David we declare, “You form this child’s inward parts; you knit this baby together in my womb. I praise you for the fearful and wonderful works of pregnancy. You are making and weaving this little person together” (verses 13–15). A pregnant mother can attend to the atoms in her unborn baby’s body no more than she can touch the moon — thankfully. We have not the power to form, to knit, to make, to weave. But our God does, and we have his ear.

What’s more, David affirms how God forms both bodies and days. Before the foundation of the world, God not only chose to create our children, but he determined the length of their lives. Through prayer we say to God and ourselves, “In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for this baby” (verse 16).

God didn’t pen our children’s stories into a dusty three-ring notebook, the kind that are always lying around, and then slam it shut. David says, “In your book were written.” Expectant mothers, our Father has a book! He is ever aware of its tales, of the lives of our unborn children (and everyone else). For what he has written, he will bring to pass. Whatever this trimester may hold, may our prayers lean into the sovereign God who holds it.

‘You Are There’

By this point, it’s easy to agree with David about the extent of God’s knowledge and power. His attributes are “too wonderful for [us],” too “high” to grasp and grip (verse 6). At the same time, Psalm 139 encourages mothers to rest assured that he is with us, in all his great and mysterious perfections.

David teaches us this lesson by taking us on a trip around the universe. He imagines himself up in heaven and down in Sheol (verse 8), east as the sunrise and west as the seas (verse 9). In each place, he finds God there. Amazingly, the Lord does not arrive after David, but leads David there himself (verse 10).

After David’s example, we can imagine ourselves walking through a hundred different high and low points of pregnancy (an exercise that may run our emotions through a pinball machine). Picture a doctor gesturing at a dot of flashing white, tears of joy springing to our eyes. There’s a heartbeat. A month later, that heartbeat seems too low, even inconsistent. We cry again, this time for fear.

Step back from each hypothetical. Turn to God and say, “During ultrasounds, you are there! Through worry-ridden nights, you are there! In the hospital room, you are there! Come what may, you are with me wherever I go, leading me, guiding me, holding me” (verse 8). As we praise his presence, his presence comforts us.

‘Protect This Child’

Toward the end of the psalm, after David has adored the all-seeing, sovereign God who is in his midst, he turns to petition, earnestly pleading for God to act (verses 19–22). Confident that God is over his life, he asks God to intervene in his life. In the same way, the more a mother recalls the power of God both to take and to give life, the more she will ask God to protect the child in her womb.

We pray confidently for God to protect our unborn children because we are confident that he can protect them. We ask him to decrease blood pressure, to increase growth, to remove hemorrhages, to induce labor — all because he can. And so we pray, with every mother’s blood-earnestness and a Christian mother’s confidence, “Oh that you would protect this child, O God!”

He delights in a mother’s pleas for her unborn child, which are themselves expressions of worship. We petition him because we know he is with us, listening to our cries. We petition him because we know that only an all-knowing, all-powerful God is able to sustain the babies in our bellies. We petition him because we know he loves those babies, more than we could understand.

Ought God’s thoughts about this pregnancy, then, be more precious to us than Google’s (verse 17)? A single search may produce 239,000,000 results (I just checked), but even that number has an end, a limit, a boundary. God’s knowledge is infinite, vaster than the sands on every shore (verse 18). His power, presence, and ability to protect likewise know no end. And — can you believe it? — this God is with us.

We must remember throughout our lives that in God’s sight there are no little people and no little places. (The Lord’s Work in the Lord’s Way & No Little People, 90)

So counseled Francis Schaeffer, twentieth-century American pastor and theologian. Perhaps no one needs the reminder more than moms, whose lives center, most literally, on little people in little places.

Of course, Schaeffer is not encouraging us to deny what our eyes obviously see. An unborn child begins no bigger than the smallest of seeds — months pass before our stomachs grow enough to show. Newborns are hardly any more noticeable, as we tiptoe them back and forth between crib and nursing chair.

Eventually our babies do turn into toddlers, and our toddlers become “big kids.” Yet mothers seem to spend more and more time in small places: pantries, laundry rooms, carpools. So as we care for little people in little places, we tend to feel quite little ourselves.

“As we care for little people in little places, we tend to feel quite little ourselves.”

But Schaeffer reminds us to see as God sees. All our little people, all our little places — surely they are little, but God made them. God governs them. God gave them to us. And so it is God, not the world, who determines the value and use of our children, our homes, and motherhood itself.

Worldy Lens

We tend to see littleness as insignificance. Schaeffer articulates the inner conflict well: “It is wonderful to be a Christian, but I am such a small person, so limited in talents — or energy or psychological strength or knowledge — that what I do is not very important” (63). Surely, mothers resonate. We want to matter, but we are “just moms.” It’s our unpaid job to be publicly defied by toddlers at the grocery store. We feel small, and so our lives seem unimportant.

But we would do well to ask ourselves, Through whose lens are we looking at motherhood? It is the world, not God’s word, that sees littleness as insignificance. Today’s society shouts, “The bigger, the better,” but for thousands of years God has said, “The Lord sees not as man sees” (1 Samuel 16:7). As Schaeffer puts it,

We all tend to emphasize big works and big places, but all such emphasis is of the flesh. To think in such terms is simply to hearken back to the old, unconverted, egoist, self-centered Me. This attitude, taken from the world, is more dangerous to the Christian than fleshly amusement or practice. It is the flesh. (74)

Schaeffer shows us that our problem isn’t littleness and lack of recognition, but sin and temptation. The world’s self-exalting, child-belittling ways entice our flesh to despise self-sacrifice, which is inherent in caring for children (especially little ones).

Whenever we long for something more than what motherhood seems to afford, we must remember: sight that sees bigger as better “is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 John 2:16). God has a different, far grander vision of motherhood for us. He loves to comfort little moms of little children in a child-belittling world — not by puffing us up, but by satisfying us with his glory and drawing us into his ways.

His Is the Greatness

Counter to the way of the world, God is not in the business of making moms feel bigger so that they can feel better. He is in the business of revealing his own bigness and better-ness to us — because he made us, because he loves us, and because he knows what is best for us. And what is best for little mothers is that they find all their satisfaction in a good, great, and glorious God.

By his grace, we will lament our littleness less and less. Louder and louder, we will declare with David, “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours” (1 Chronicles 29:11). We are indeed little, but God is great.

And we belong to him. He delights to use seemingly insignificant people for his glorious ends. His greatness can transform our humbles lives, if we will let it. “That which is me,” says Schaeffer, “must become the me of God. Then I can become useful in God’s hands. The Scripture emphasizes that much can come from little if the little is truly consecrated to God” (72). In other words, how we feel about our usefulness means little; what God says about how he intends to use us is everything.

Little yet Useful

Take Mary. We know her as the mother of Jesus, but before the angel Gabriel appeared to her, she was a poor woman betrothed to a poor man, living in a small town. In other words, she was little — but she trusted God. Though a virgin, she believed she would bear the Son whom God had promised. Before she became the most famous mother, she had hung a banner over her little life: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

Little mothers, do we see ourselves, first and foremost, as servants of the Lord? Do we long for his word and his will to govern our lives? When we do, however inconspicuous our lives may be, God uses us. As Schaeffer says (and the life of Mary well illustrates),

The people who receive praise from the Lord Jesus will not in every case be the people who hold leadership in this life. There will be many persons who were sticks of wood that stayed close to God and were quiet before him, and were used in power by him in a place that looks small to men. (90)

We are not the mothers of Jesus, but we are the mothers of children whom he has made and given to us, children with minds and hearts capable of knowing and loving him forever.

One End for All Our Littleness

Are we satisfied in our great God? When we are satisfied in him, we will be used by him — in our homes, neighborhoods, and beyond. As Schaeffer puts it,

Only one thing is important — to be consecrated persons in God’s place for us, at each moment. Those who think of themselves as little people in little places, if committed to Christ and living under his lordship in the whole of life, may, by God’s grace, change the flow of our generation. (90)

This is the heart of why, for Schaeffer, there are no little people and no little places. In God’s sight, there are “no little people and no big people in the true spiritual sense, but only consecrated and unconsecrated people” (72–73). Either Christ’s blood covers us, or it does not. His Spirit works in us, or it does not. His glory delights us, or it does not.

“Nothing everlasting ever amounts to little, but sometimes we forget.”

And anytime the redeemed enter a room, whether it be the Oval Office or a newborn’s nursery, God intends to work in that place through them. God delights to use littleness for his glorious end — that is, making himself look good, great, and glorious in us. “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever” (Romans 11:36).

God’s grand purposes for our littleness can drown out any seeming insignificance. Wonder of wonders, much good can come from little mothers who are truly satisfied in, their lives wholly consecrated to, our wondrous God. Ultimately, our day job is infinitely more than changing diapers, wrangling toddlers, and running late to carpool. We labor to enjoy and exalt God alongside family, friend, and neighbor, now and forevermore.

Nothing everlasting ever amounts to little, but sometimes we forget.