Have you ever felt as though motherhood and happiness cannot coexist? Has the sacred, daily work of motherhood ever felt both overwhelming and unsatisfying? Have you felt the weight of motherhood carrying a stigma in today’s culture?
This Book is for you if...
- You long for spiritual language for the significance of motherhood
- You're fearful to start a family because you've been told children block the path to the good life
- You want to believe God handcrafted this position, but don’t believe it in your heart
Motherhood & The Good Life
Topic: Early Motherhood
Length of Study: 20 chapters
Focal Scripture: Multiple passages
“We’ve grown profoundly ignorant to the fact that God himself decided to perpetually bless the world with new life through mothers; that the act of mothering is a primary means by which God continues to expand his kingdom of image bearers, generation after generation; that God himself chose to enter the world not by opening the skies but by opening the womb of a woman.”
- Katie Noble, author
A prayer for the mother who desires to live in Biblical truth
Dearest Lord of Truth and Beauty,
You have ordered the world to tell of your goodness; indeed, all of creation sings your praise! The stars and the sun, the birds and meadows are poems of your faithfulness.
In your wisdom and kindness, you’ve appointed your truth to be proclaimed from the mouths of babes. These little ones you’ve given to me are proof of your love, and it is to them that your kingdom belongs. Despite their youth, you bestow your truth upon them. It is upon these tender hearts that your truth can be written.
Forgive me, Father, for forgetting the wisdom of children, for trading their wonder for harder, sharper, smaller things: my own understanding, my own fear, my own hand-cobbled identity, my faltering ability and ego. Forgive me for trading the soft, fleshy heart of my youth for an aged heart of stone.
Create in me a new heart, O God! Restore in me the joy of your salvation! As I spend my days with these little ones, soften my heart to once again receive and rejoice in your truth.
In Jesus’s name, amen.
Meet the Author
Katie Noble’s Story
The easy thing to say is that I became a mother before I was ‘ready’. But no woman is ever truly ready to receive all that motherhood brings with it. So the true thing to say is that I became a mother before I meant to, before we’d gotten our ducks in a row, before I’d accomplished all the things I planned, before I’d agreed to allow motherhood to slow me down.
When my son was born, I promised myself I wouldn’t succumb to all the stereotypes of new mothers: I wouldn’t ‘lose myself’ in motherhood, wouldn’t give up control over my life, wouldn’t let fear dictate my parenting decisions, wouldn’t crumble under the pressure to get it all right. But, of course, all of those things came to pass. The life I’d been led to believe was good was one of ultimate control, full of margin and ease and aligning with my preferences. Life as a mother was not that. And I was left scrambling to patch together a feasible argument to call my life good.
I didn’t realize that I’d internalized beliefs about motherhood and the good life that did not agree with God’s heart nor the scriptures. I’d subconsciously come to agree with untruths about what makes life valuable, what makes a woman worthy of love, and what it means to truly offer all things to Christ who came life and life to the full. It took me years (and I am still far from arriving fully at the truth) to allow God to refashion my heart to receive his vision for the good life. I was amazed to see that this good life isn’t merely accessible within motherhood, but that motherhood can be a path directly into such a life, as it offers women many of the mandatory postures of a disciple of Christ: humility, self-forgetfulness, care for others, sacrificial love, and persistent reliance upon God.
If you’ve ever felt disillusioned in motherhood, burdened by cultural narratives that treat children (and, by extension, their mothers) with disdain, or simply weary from the legitimate and long labor of motherhood, I hope this book will offer a measure of reprieve. I hope you’ll see with clarity that motherhood is a station fashioned with intention and delight by God himself to expand his Kingdom through and within us, the mothers.
Katie Noble
Katie Noble is the author of Pray Like This: Christ’s Guide to Praying the Scriptures and God Our Home: A Study of the Gospel of John. She and her husband live and work in Ohio with their four children.
