Mothering

I recently met with a mentor who I deeply trust to speak truth into my life. During the meeting she said something that I have been wrestling with: “Michelle, did you notice that you were ‘mother’ in the group.”

I have to admit that my first reaction was to bristle. 

I was never one to want to be a mom growing up. I played with baby dolls, but just as much as I played with dinosaurs. I didn’t spend time thinking of children’s names. I celebrate with my sisters who did spend time thinking about these things and find such deep joy and meaning in their children. I just knew, from a very earlier age, that wasn’t me.

So when my mentor named my identity as being the mother in the room, I wanted to give all of the reasons I shouldn’t be seen as a mother, starting with the fact that this was not an identify that I ever claimed. I don’t particularly see myself as nurturing. I’m certainly not good at showing unconditional love or being patient. 

But as I started to list all of my aversions to what she was saying, she gently stopped me and said, “No, Michelle, people look to you to lead with wisdom.” To lead with wisdom. Those words stopped me in my tracks.

What a beautiful and expansive view of mothering. Mothering not as being solely connected with bearing or raising children, as profound as that call is. But mothering in the way that I lift up on Mother’s Day each year - that some people are called to be spiritual mothers. 

With this realization I was able to name the qualities I do have that align with mothering - from loyalty, to humility, empathy, attentiveness, and teaching. By able to see these qualities as part of who I am, in all of my wholeness, I was able to reframe mothering from something that I could never do to part of who I am. Something I would never have noticed without my mentor’s words. 

We all have words that hit our heart and head. Those words that redefine our understanding of our very being. While I am still wrestling with the implications of this noticing from my mentor, I am thankful for her wisdom. 

​What is your understanding of mothering and how does it effect your vocation and identity as a pastor?