May
3
52home
Filed under Biblical Womanhood | 52home 2:37 p.m. Melanie and Moon
My sisters and I want to echo Mom’s comments from yesterday. We are so grateful for the single women who babysat and made special memories with us when we were kids. And today we’re so blessed by the young women who love on our children.
A few years ago, Caroline sent us this story of three single women who left an indelible imprint on several generations of children. We’re reposting it this Mother’s Day week in hopes that it encourages all the single women who serve families. Thank you leaving a legacy of godliness to the little children in your life!
I was single until I was 35 (now have 4 year old twin daughters—our double blessing).
As a child we had a friend called Donna who came for tea every week, babysat, and had much godly input for me and my brothers. I am 44 now and still think of her as part of our family and although I rarely see her anymore, I always remember her with enormous affection and some of her advice helps me still.
As a single I had the privilege of being very close to several families with children. I was a young lady whose main aim was (and always will be) to be a Proverbs 31 wife and mother. I found it incredibly hard being single, but found great fulfillment in spending time with the children of my friends. I worked with children, and also went to one friend every week to help her with her children when her husband was working late. I also babysat and spent time with other friends and their children. I adored all of them, and felt enormously privileged when they called me their friend, and when I heard them repeating phrases I often used!
As a Mum with young children now, I have a special friend called Helen who comes for tea once a week and helps put my daughters to bed, prays with us all, reads them stories, comes on outings with my husband, children and me, and babysits. When my daughters talk about extended family, they always include her. She has great input into their lives and I feel privileged to have her as part of our lives.
Just as I called Donna “my Donna” and my friend’s children called me “my Caroline,” my children are now calling Helen “my Helen.” I am truly blessed!
For Mother’s Day week, we wanted to honor two groups of women.
First, we want to thank single women who do not have children of their own, but have chosen to love, serve, care for, and nurture other people’s children. You too are worthy of honor on Mother’s Day.
How does a single woman enter into the meaning of motherhood if she doesn’t have children of her own? Elisabeth Elliot answered this question:
“A single woman can have children! She may be a spiritual mother, as was Amy Carmichael [missionary to orphans in India], by the very offering of her singleness, transformed for the good of far more children than a natural mother may produce.”
I know so many of you who have offered your singleness to God and had it transformed for the good of many children. You have become spiritual mothers to countless little ones.
When you listen to children’s stories and laugh at their jokes, when you babysit them or take them on a special outing, when you encourage and comfort and teach them, you enter into the meaning of motherhood and honor God who created you as a woman to nurture little ones.
Single women, may I say “thank you” on behalf of all of us mothers? Thank you for babysitting our children. Thank you for taking an interest in our children. Thank you for making the gospel attractive to our children. Thank you for loving our children as if they were your very own.
My fellow moms, let’s seek out and honor the single women who love our children this Mother’s Day.
As someone who has always signed her emails “In Christ, Nicole” I thought this post by Stephen Altrogge was hilarious. See y’all Monday! Nicole for my mom and sisters
(While we wait for the phone to ring, I thought I’d tell you how we got here.)
“Having babies—it’s just not Nicole’s gift.” That was our family friend, Kimm Harvey’s opinion, delivered affectionately in her unmistakable Philly accent. She and my mom were talking after my second difficult delivery, which wasn’t as bad as the first one, but still, um, well, memorable. Let’s leave it at that.
Another dear friend told his wife that he would personally contribute to our adoption fund if only I would agree to not have any more children. (I think I need to let him know I’m ready to take him up on his offer.)
When Steve and I visited a specialist about a year after Tori’s birth to discuss the possibility of me having more children, the first words out of his mouth were, “Have you considered a surrogate mother?” Uh, no. Definitely not.
“You won’t die from childbirth” the doctor told us, but “you’‘ll have to be prepared for things to be a little crazy at the end.”
After lots of praying and counsel-seeking, we thought we were prepared. We decided to go ahead and try for another child. Maybe we were crazy.
We don’t have a conviction from Scripture about how many children a couple should have, but we do have a conviction that God loves families and works through families to build his church. And out of that conviction, and our own experience in wonderful, gospel-loving families, our desire for more children remained strong.
But months went by and I didn’t get pregnant.
So about a year ago, I asked Steve if we could rethink and pray over our decision again. He was more than willing, always being more anxious about my health than I was.
It was a difficult decision. There is no chapter and verse in the Bible that tells you how many children to have; it’s a wisdom issue. And boy did we need God’s wisdom! In the end, it came down to the question: “How can I best serve God’s kingdom?” And for me, the answer was to care first for my existing family by not putting my short or long-term health at risk.
But our desire for children remained strong, so we began to talk about adoption.
To be continued….
“As women, clothing and appearance are some of the most powerful and important means we have of sending a message about our hearts and our values. So here’s the question. What do your clothes and your appearance communicate about you? What message are you sending? Unfortunately, this issue represents an area where too many Christian women have accepted the secular world’s way of thinking, with the rationalization that ‘Maybe it’s okay so long as we just don’t go to the farthest extremes.’ That’s why we have to go back to the Word of God and ask, ‘What is God’s way of thinking about all this? What message should we be sending? And how can we send that message with our clothing and with our outer appearance?’” Nancy Leigh DeMoss
For more on modesty from Nancy check out:
Caution! Your Clothes are Talking
Godly Garments
Philosophies of Beauty in Conflict
HT: Tony Reinke
