Another Mother’s Day has come and gone. A time to honor our moms, grandmas and other special women in our lives, the holiday can be especially hard for some women — specifically those who’ve lost children, who are estranged from their children, or who never had children of their own.
I’ve been a mom for over 13 years, but one of my most memorable Mother’s Day cards arrived when I was single. I was an editor for Focus on the Family’s children’s magazines, and my supervisor gave me the card just before Mother’s Day. Inside she had written: “Thanks for being a spiritual mother to thousands of children.”
I hadn’t thought of my job as mothering, and yet my coworker affirmed that’s exactly what it was. At the time, I was in my late 20s with a job I loved, but I was trying to suppress my longings to be a wife and mom. After I received the card, I viewed my situation differently. I wrote about this experience in “I Feel Like I Was Born to Have Babies”:
“I began to see all of the children God had placed in my life to nurture: nephews and nieces, my friends’ children, the kids in the Sunday School class I taught, even a teen I met for coffee once a week. And then God handed me a new motherhood challenge: He led me to take that teen girl into my home …. I wasn’t her actual parent, of course, but God allowed me to stretch my mothering muscles as I set up house rules, cooked dinners for two and drove her to and from her job.
“I didn’t view these experiences as a consolation prize for not being a mom yet. They were God’s gifts and a chance for me to live in ways I had been created for — long before I became someone’s actual “Mommy.” As I embraced my nurturing side with other people’s children, I had less fear about never having children of my own.”
What is spiritual mothering?
Titus 2:3-5 contains the well-known passage about older women nurturing the younger:
“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”
As a young single woman, I tuned out this passage because of all the talk of husbands and children. But on closer examination, we see desirable qualities that don’t require maternal experience to model or mentor:
- reverent in behavior
- not slanderers
- not overdoing on wine
- teaching what is good
- being self-controlled
- pure
- working in the home
- kind
Any woman can embody this list. Simply stated, older Christian women — and this could be a 20-something or even a teenager (we’re all older than someone!) — are instructed to teach the principles of God’s Word and live them out for the benefit of younger women. No relationship status is offered as a requirement.
We know from other passages that many women in the New Testament church were widows; some may have been childless. They may have lacked substantial experience with marriage and children themselves. Yet they were called upon to impart wisdom, care for, and disciple younger women.
As a side note, I don’t believe single women lack insight on marriage or even raising children. I have received solid marriage and parenting advice from my single friends when they may have not even realized they were dispensing it. James makes it clear that God generously gives wisdom to all believers, and this knowledge can be used to build up the body.
Becoming a mom
If you’re still a bit uncomfortable with the concept of being a mom, think of it in terms of mentorship. Many young women don’t have wise, gospel-believing moms with whom they share a good relationship. Be on the lookout for women in your church who need a wise older woman in their lives.
Maybe, like me, you gravitate toward working with children and investing in the next generation. Children and teenagers are desperate for godly examples in their lives — the more, the better! I have seen my own kids benefit spiritually from their Sunday morning teachers, youth leaders and other godly adults — many of them single.
Perhaps you find yourself lacking godly mothering. Seek out a mentor who can model the list from Titus 2 in your life. Along with my own mom, I have several women who fill this role for me. I have benefitted greatly from their wisdom, love and care. When you personally feel filled up by older women, you have more to impart to those who are younger.
Before I was a mom or even a wife, I was a spiritual mother to many children through children’s ministry and my work with youth magazines. My coworker was gracious to affirm that. Having that perspective during my single years motivated me to press into my nurturing side and see how God could use me in that role. It didn’t stop me from desiring a family of my own, but it did give me joy to exercise some of my God-given maternal instincts.
If you haven’t flexed your mothering muscles, why not make it a goal to do so by next Mother’s Day? You won’t be the only one to be blessed.
Copyright 2024 Suzanne Hadley Gosselin. All rights reserved.
