Babies having babies

I was not an especially young first-time mom.  A month away from turning 24 the birth of my baby girl suddenly plunged me into the life-long role of mother.  I felt then, and still feel often, that I am much too immature for this job. How on earth could I be someones mother when I feel so strongly the need of my own mother?  How on earth could I be equipped to raise up young hearts to love and fear the LORD when I so often am lost as to what that even looks like in the living out of my own life? 

God has been harping a theme of motherhood in my life lately.  I have been over and over reminded of the call of women in the Lord to motherhood, completely separate from the call to bear biological children or not.  I have been struck by the opportunities to minister that I have stumbled upon in the last year and keep looking around like, "this role can't be for me right?  I mean I still need spiritual mothering!".  It all seems so familiar.  So often God's humble design is to call babies to mother babies.  And this is not just a call to me, it is a call to ALL Women in God's economy. 

I think both directions are crucial in the life of believers.  You are called to mother - to nurture, teach, encourage, strengthen, uphold- but you are equally called to be mothered.  Pursue opportunities to reach out in both directions.  Recognize that you are, that we all are, babies bearing up babies.  Allow yourself to be strengthened by those down the road from you, glean from the grace those around you have received in their time of need.  Allow yourself to strengthen others, sharing from the bounty of grace you have received.

Some of my favorite advice to give is that which I have received from my mother.  She is my credible source on parenting, homeschooling, and general living.  In the same way "For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace." John 1:16.  Be freed to share from what you have received while being fully aware of your great need to continue to receive.  Go bravely fill your role, immersed in the awe that someone so immature could be called to such a high calling.