Lessons from "Motherhood" posts by Rachel Jankovic - Part 3

Posted by Traci at 9:52 PM

These three posts by Rachel Jankovic on the Desiring God blog killed me. And then they brought me back to life.  I posted all three in their entirety for my records, but here’s a summary of what God is teaching me through this.  My words in bold, except when using quotes.  Unbolded is all direct quotes.  Part 3:


From Motherhood Is Application

In the yucky moments of motherhood, there isn’t time for a lecture.  There is time for application.  Time to “take the grace that God has extended to you, and feed your children with it. Apply what you believe about God’s mercy and kindness and long suffering towards us, and pour it out to them”.

“Christian mothering is a constant cycle of nourishment — both physical and spiritual.”

“In the same way we take the food we eat and make it into something the baby can eat (and our bodies simply do this without us willing them to), so we take what we believe about God and the gospel and faith and life, and we apply it in the places that seem too little for it.”

“This is no time for a gospel presentation. There isn’t time. There isn’t anyone to lead the discussion around the felt board, because you are still scrambling to figure out dinner. This isn’t a time for a gospel presentation because it is a time for gospel application. This is a time to take the grace that God has extended to you, and feed your children with it. Apply what you believe about God’s mercy and kindness and long suffering towards us, and pour it out to them — in a form they can believe in.“

Motherhood can be very, very messy.  Literally.  But God isn’t disgusted by me, He’s never gets tired of helping me.  It’s in these moments that I have to extend God’s kindness to them.  God is “teaching and refining me” through it.   May I “feed my children with the grace that he has given to” me.

“Mothering is a job that is full of difficult moments. Diapers blow out in stores when you have too much in your cart to just walk out. You need to take what you believe and apply it to these difficult moments. Does the Bible teach us that God is disgusted by our frailty? That he doesn’t want to carry our burdens? That he doesn’t have the energy to deal with us?”

“Rest in God, and your children will learn to. Extend God’s kindness to you, to them. Forgive them the way God forgave you. You have everything you need to spiritually nourish your children, because you have Christ.”

“God is not above these moments. He is teaching us, and leading us, and refining us, in them. He wants to see our faith in action. He wants to see us feeding our children with the grace that he has given to us.”