The American culture is working tirelessly to make your life more siloed, isolated, and disconnected from community so that you will depend on it for your purpose and satisfaction.

In this host culture we all live in, there is no greater problem that we face than a siloed, isolated existence. From the rise in depression, the rise in suicide, political polarization, and addiction, to the extreme beliefs that people hold with conviction no matter how it conflicts with reality… I could keep going — it is all amplified by the extreme level of isolation and disconnected lives our culture wants us to live.

Here is what I find fascinating; I don’t have to spend any time convincing you about this. Nearly everyone hearing this would go yeah. The truth is we all pretty much resent the way this life is but feel powerless to do anything about it. Short of buying a plot of land in South Dakota and starting a commune with a group of friends, getting out of this way of life feels impossible. So, for most people, the answer is just apathy.

I need you to know that what you feel here is not wrong. This way of life that our host culture wants us to live is the opposite of God’s design for us. The Bible, and specifically Jesus, believes that every person should be part of a unified community where they can love and be loved.

You will never be a perfect mother, and you will never be everything your child needs, but you can be faithful to the task of raising your children in the way they should go, loving them in the way that they are, and trusting Jesus with the rest.

So today, I invite you to consider three things I learned from my mother and watch in my wife, which I hope bring new joy to your motherhood journey.

It goes without saying that I am not pedestooling them as the paragon of motherhood, but they are the two moms I know best!

“Giving is the greatest pleasure in life.” - Julius Rosenwald

No matter where you are on your spiritual journey, we all want to live like this. We all want to be people who bless others with that level of impact, joy, and dedication.

As we read in proverbs earlier, we want to be a soul of blessing. As inspiring as that story is, and just as much as we might aspire to be that type of person, there is an equal counter-motivator we deal with.

Giving feels like losing.

Whether we are in touch with the feeling itself or not, I imagine if you did a quick inventory of your heart, you would find resonance there. Giving—for many of us—feels like a loss.

We might feel we are losing out on something we want or think we need. We might feel a loss of a greater sense of security. Or perhaps a loss of control. Whatever it is, when faced with the prospect treating our resources the way the Bible describes, our immediate feeling is often... loss.

To some extent this is natural, when we go to the store and give our money, we get our bags immediately. We see where the $100 or more went.

Giving to God might not immediately yield a return, so it might feel like you didn’t get anything back.

Even though God promises that everything we give to Him will be returned in exponentially greater ways, our inability to delay gratification has hamstrung us.