Watching my daughter at home full time with four children, 5 years old and younger, is to watch a type of loving, synchronized chaos with moments of structured instruction thrown in. Here is a college-educated woman, who once worked with thoughtful adults, now deal with cute, but often unreasonable, little people. Yet through it all, she has fully and joyfully embraced this calling, knowing that it is a sacred calling to nurture the faith of the next generation. Mothers, listen to these encouraging words from Charles Spurgeon:
O dear mothers you have a very sacred trust reposed in you by God! He has in effect said to you, “Take this child and nurse it for Me, and I will give you your wages.” You are called to equip the future man of God that he may be thoroughly furnished unto every good work. If God spares you, you may live to hear that pretty boy speak to thousands, and you will have the sweet reflection in your heart that the quiet teachings of the nursery led the man to love his God and serve Him. Those who think that a woman detained at home by her little family is doing nothing, think the reverse of what is true. Scarcely can the godly mother quit her home for a place of worship, but dream not that she is lost to the work of the church, far from it, she is doing the best possible service for her Lord. Mothers, the godly training of your offspring is your first and most pressing duty. Christian women, by teaching children the Holy Scriptures, are as much fulfilling their part for the Lord, as Moses in judging Israel, or Solomon in building the Temple.
( Sermon #1866, “The Sunday School and the Scriptures,” www.spurgeongems.org)
Do you know a busy mom who needs some encouragement as she seeks to nurture the faith of her children? Here is a resource to consider, Mothers: Disciplers of the Next Generations. This affordable booklet, written by Sally Michael, will challenge moms to look on their mothering with a biblical perspective, to seize the opportunities God gives them each day to encourage faith in their children, and to rely on Him as their sin-bearer and enabler to do the great work He has called moms to do.
