Covenantal Motherhood: The Splendor of it All

“God made you!” Mica exclaimed proudly. “No, no Sweetie,” I said, “God made you, God made you!”

It was her first day of reciting the catechism, and two-year-old Mica was confused. Perhaps help from her older brother would make things clear. After listening to her brother Liam answer the question, “Who made you?” several times with the response, “God made me,” I turned to Mica once again. “Mica, now it’s your turn.” I looked into her big, blue eyes and asked, “Who made you?” She pushed her chest out and proclaimed, “Liam’s God!”

Well, she was certainly right. Liam’s God did make little Mica. And Liam’s God also made this special time between a mother and her precious charges. For Liam’s God is “God, the faithful God which keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those that love Him and keep His commandments” (Dt. 7:9).

This promise thrills and animates me each morning even before I put my feet into my fluffy blue slippers. While Soccer Moms drive their children hither and yon in order to indulge their desire to kick things, buy things, and “be cool,” Covenant Moms are sharpening arrows from their husbands’ quivers (Ps. 127). We desire that God’s will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. And it is His will that children be trained in the way they should go so that when they are old they will not depart from it (Pr. 22:6).

This is our Father’s world and our children must be brought up to live for Him, to live for Christ’s crown and covenant. And we as mothers do not live for our children, or indulge our children’s desires. The blessing of a covenant-keeping home is that the children do not run the home, the father does. One of the greatest gifts we can give to our children is a happy home led by a Christian father who is honored and loved by his wife. In the context of a well-ordered family, there’s no question that God’s unique call to covenantal motherhood is the most time-consuming, awe-inspiring joy a woman will ever know.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid on my back.”1 As faithful parents, we must lay the weight of our children’s glory on our backs as well. Lewis calls this a “serious thing.” Indeed, it is this “hope of glory” that brings mothers to their knees interceding for their children. It is this hope of glory that allows us to overlook green crayon marks on the walls in order to finish an afternoon prayer. And it is the hope of glory that will lead me to continue to ask Mica, “Who made you?”

This is a hope to labor for, and diligently. Although he was speaking to seminary students, the Dutch theologian Herman Witsius expressed the desire of every covenant mother, in training her children: “at length, shall I seem to myself truly to live if, through the blessing of the Most High, on our labors, you at last go forth from my training, fitted for the service of the Church, devoted to God, and yielding glory to Him.”2

It is for “forever people” that we labor each day. We are teaching immortals to read, to pray, to love the things God loves and hate the things God hates. We are sharpening immortal arrows for Christ’s sake. Lewis writes, “Nations, cultures, arts and civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.”3

To all families God has given just twenty-four hours each day. Some families spend it racing from one practice field to the next. Some families spend the day avoiding each other, while some waste the day away in front of the television. But the blessed homes of Biblical covenant-keeping families stand in stark contrast with any others.

By the grace of God, a day is filled with urgency and possibilities, catechism and cookies, toy trains and dirty diapers.

Night falls and teeth are brushed, prayers are said, lights are dimmed, kisses are given... and everlasting splendor is tucked in tight. Praise God for the weighty joy of glory.

Amy Hauck, and her husband, Bill, are the blessed parents of six children. Amy divides her time between homeschooling the kids and working from their home in Myrtle Beach, SC as a freelance Christian writer.