I remember the first time I ever held a baby. I was 21. I could hold a beer before I held a baby, and that was intentional. As a teenager, when young moms would ask if I liked to babysit, I tried to look as apathetic as possible in order to avoid the responsibility. The longer I put off holding a baby, the scarier it became. The fear grew the more I realized how ignorant I was, as a young woman, of what was supposedly so natural for women—taking care of children.
The first baby I ever held was named José. He was two months old and his mother was 13 years old. She lived in a shelter in Lima, Peru, with four other young girls coming out of sexually abusive situations resulting in pregnancy. I admitted in the first five seconds that I had never held a baby before, and my discomfort didn’t need a translation. My time in Lima taught me many things, but mainly that babies are hard and I don’t know what I’m doing. Also, don’t drink the water.
Eight years later, I have two little girls of my own, a Master’s degree in social work specializing in children and adolescents, and that same old nagging fear that I have no idea what I am doing, even as a mother. How do I talk to my kids about their hearts instead of just trying to modify their behavior? How do I make sure my daughters understand their own brokenness but also their own dignity as daughters of the King? How do I cultivate in them a desire to be defenders of the weak and friends to the outcast in their classrooms? Also, how do I avoid tantrums at Target?
Desiring Wisdom
I have to admit that sometimes I want to be wise just because I want my life and my kids to turn out okay. Fear and a desperate need for control fuel my desire for wisdom. If I can just know whatGod wants me to do, and then do thatwell, my children won’t end up hating God or skipping school or doing any of the same things I did growing up. I want to “be wise” because it would give me a sense of control in this broken, scary world.
The good news is that the God of the Bible loves to make fools wise, and he gives wisdom generously to those who ask for it. The Bible does notlay out a five-step plan for getting my child to eat anything other than goldfish crackers, nor does it promise to give me concrete answers to the many decisions I am called to make as a parent. However, God’s Word does point us to the source of true wisdom:
“Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose was is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’”(1 Cor. 1:26–31).
God’s wisdom is Jesus—Jesus the baby who was born to a teenage mom who probably didn’t know what she was doing. Jesus who lived and died and rose again so that we might be saved from our own foolishness and sin. To be wise in motherhood is not to have all the answers, but to know yourself united with Jesus.
God’s will for our lives is not that we would get it all right and raise perfect, fully catechized children. “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified” (1 Thess. 4:3). He wants to make us righteous, to redeem our brokenness, to make us more fully human. He wants to take our stories and make them more beautiful than we could ever imagine. When you are sitting in the doubt and worry of not knowing what to do, remember this: our wise Savior is wholeheartedly committed to your wellbeing and to your good. He is radically foryou. He will not waste even your failures as a mother to bring about your good and the good of those who love him. So ask. Ask him for the wisdom that James tells us he gives generously and without reproach, but remember that the fear of the Lordis the beginning of wisdom, not the fear of messing up. Abide in Christ and walk in freedom. Cast your worries—including your worries about what to do—on Jesus. Trust not in your ability to make perfect decisions but in the grace of our sovereign and wise Savior.
Lord, “we do not know what do to, but our eyes are on you”(2 Chron. 20:12).
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION/ APPLICATION:
1. What experience in motherhood has caused you to say, “I have no idea what I’m doing!”? How might that place be a good place for the Christian to be?
2. How does the coming of Christ offer us hope when we don’t know what to do or how to do it?
3. Is anything in your life causing you to feel perplexed or uncertain? Spend some time asking God for wisdom. Ask him to help you to trust him and to walk in freedom.
Dylan Peters lives in San José, Costa Rica with her husband and two daughters. She works for a counseling and discipleship ministry through a local church. Learn more about the ministry in Costa Rica at