Raising Humans

Not Legends or World Changers or History Makers

I once saw a mom post a selfie on Instagram, and her sweatshirt said: Raising Legends. (You can find a similar shirt here.)

I know this kind of messaging is common. Perhaps it’s inspiring for moms to hear that we are raising legends or something like that.

On the one hand, if the intent of this message is to place a high value on the importance of motherhood, then that’s a good thing because motherhood is so very important.

On the other hand, I can’t help but sense there’s also something subtly pernicious with this message, for it ties a process with a product, where the process is mothering and the implied product is a child who will eventually achieve a certain legendary status or level of success.

There is nothing wrong, of course, with having a child who does, in fact, grow up to do things that are impressive in the world’s eyes. But neither is there anything wrong with having a child who grows up to become a kind-hearted, hard-working citizen who leads a quiet life.

If we expect our kids to become earthly legends or world changers or whatever else the world views as impressive, then we are succumbing to performance-based motherhood, where we count on our parenting methods to produce certain outcomes.

When we do this, we are promoting a formulaic type of legalism with a side dish of prosperity gospel: If I mother like x, then my kids will turn out like y.

I would posit, however, that it’s unhealthy (and inaccurate) to presume any parenting method as guaranteed to produce impressively legendary people. This isn’t to say that our mothering doesn’t impact our children. Naturally, we as moms have tremendous influence in our kids’ lives. But as moms who are also followers of Christ, there comes a point in every mom’s journey when we must recognize that God loves our children more than we do, and God has plans for our children beyond anything we can imagine. Sometimes our kids’ journey might include great things that will make the world gush over them. But other times their journey may include a path of suffering and heartache that is simply a result of living in a fallen world.

Our job as mothers isn’t to raise legends, but to raise humans who hopefully learn to look to God to sustain them in every circumstance.

God is sovereign over both the good and the hard, regardless of our mothering methods.

I realize this isn’t a popular message. We want so much to believe we can control our children’s destinies if we just follow this 5-step method or that 7-step action plan.

As a mom, I confess that I am not immune to the temptation of seeing the awesomeness in my kids as a direct result of my parenting skills. A part of me wants to take credit for the good outcomes in my children’s lives. But there is a larger part of me that recognizes, while I have great influence in my children’s lives, I am not in control of their lives.

God is a writing a story in each of our children’s lives — or perhaps allowing a story to be written — that, ultimately, we have less control over than we’d like to believe. As much as I want to be the author who writes an amazing script for each of my children’s stories, I am their mother, not their author.

God is the author of their faith.
God is the author of their hope.
God is the author of their life.

I cannot ever claim to understand the way God allows some stories to unfold, but I do know that God has promised us in his Word that this life here on this earth is not the end of any story. This story you and I are living right now? It’s just the overture. There is another Story coming — a Story of healing and wholeness and, yes, even joy, for those who put their trust in Christ.

Motherhood is a journey I have learned to come to with open hands, saying: Lord, I trust you with these precious ones you’ve allowed me to love and care for. Help me each day to entrust their lives to you.

And even as I pray this, over and over, I still do the things moms do, because being a mom means loving them and doing the work of parenting while entrusting their story to God.

Let’s suppose for a moment that our kids don’t turn out to be “legendary” in the world’s eyes. Well, Scripture tells us that God’s kingdom is an upside-down kingdom. Jesus said, “the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matthew 20:16). I take this to mean that the people we find impressive here on earth won’t be all that impressive in eternity, but the people we overlook as ordinary will be the ones who are held with the greatest esteem in heaven.

Jesus flips everything around. He’s pretty awesome like that.

So, I want to be a mom with an eternal perspective. I’m not in the shirt-making business, but if I were, I’d make a comfy oversized sweatshirt that said: Raising Legends Humans . . . while relying on grace every step of the way.

Shalom.

Denise

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One Last Note . . .

*I wrote this piece on motherhood several years ago for another website, and I wanted to share it again here. If Mother’s Day for you happens to be a poignant day of remembering what was or perhaps what never was, I want you to know you’re not alone. I may or may not know the details of your particular story, but I have known some very brave moms in the midst of unfathomably painful stories, the kind of stories that make you wonder what on earth God is doing. All we can do is remind ourselves yet again that God is doing something beyond this earth, something we cannot begin to understand, something we can only trust, that one day he will heal all sorrow. In the meantime, I pray you sense his nearness. God loves you. He really does.

*And if you know a mom who might be encouraged by these words, you are welcome to share this with a friend.