Amos Ross Updates

Happy Mother’s Day! I just wanted to say to all the mom’s reading here…

You matter most not because you are the perfect mom with the perfect house, great hair, best playroom, summer plans, or magical powers of organization. You are not the sum of all your party-planning, play-dating parts. You aren’t as good as your matching Easter outfits from a few weeks ago or the extracurricular activities you so faithfully enable. Your worth isn’t in how you measure up to the “really good moms” around you. You don’t matter most for being the loudest cheerleader or for giving your child the most magical childhood. Your career, their careers, the size of your house, the size of their toys, the vacations, the sports…. etc. All of these things are fine in their place. Mostly.

But mostly, Moms, you matter most because you are a steward of souls. You matter most because you get a front row seat to God’s work in the life of your child. You matter most because you get to model to your children who and what really matters. You matter most because you get to dry the tears, kiss the scrapes, and talk through life’s confusions and joys.

You matter most because God chose you to parent your specific children, because He thinks you can. You matter most because your children need your strengths and your weaknesses to help them know the Lord for themselves. You get to teach and train their hearts. You get to show them what is good and right and true. You get to pursue and enjoy beauty together. Moms, we have the greatest job of all: showing our children the wonders of the gospel. Our hope and confidence comes from the Lord. He is our strength through all the days that we are given.

And did I mention that none of this is easy? In fact, most of it is hard, and hard things take work. But hard things aren’t bad things. We were made for hard things by a good God who makes no mistakes. The joys, sorrows, and challenges of our motherhood are all within His purposing for our lives. He sees and knows and cares, even if things aren’t what we expected or hoped for. He equips and enables us to be and do more than we ever thought possible. And He meets us in the deepest sorrows and fears.

It weighs on me that Mother’s Day is not a joyful day for every mama. Whether from the grief of loss, the pain of not being a mom, the difficult relationships we have with those we love, the challenging children we wrestle with and pray for… all these things twist around this day that we are expected to celebrate. But sometimes celebrating can be hard when joy seems far off and disappointment so very near.

So mamas, today of all days, enjoy the gift of knowing that you are needed for what matters most. You are needed to do what God has called you to and nothing more. Instruct your children in the truth of the gospel and delight in God’s work in their hearts. This is the only thing that will fully satisfy, sustain, and comfort their souls no matter what life holds. Moms, your job isn’t easy but it is simple — teach them to love Jesus with their whole hearts. He will be with them even when you can’t. And He loves them more than you do.

Courage, dear heart.

“And these words that I command to you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise.” Deut. 6:6-7