When I was a child, I had the opinion that my mother had to be the mother with the most faults of any mother in the world. I could have made a long list of grievances against her:

She didn’t allow me to do this thing and that thing and twenty-four other things that my friends were all allowed to do. Was ever a mother so bigoted? She made me do these other two dozen and some things that I felt were not my responsibility. No more demanding mother could possibly exist! She had at least three dozen personal defects, all of them glaring and obnoxious, all of them declaring her an obviously unfit mother. Foremost of these was that she definitely did not love me, her child, in the least.

And I think I could have gone one for quite some time, enumerating all her defects.

The worst part was that we as brothers and sisters often had grievance gabs during which we sat and aired our annoyances about our mother. In our self-righteous estimate, we made no mistakes . . . and never deserved discipline . . . and worked harder . . . and generally in every way were superior to our mother. We broke the Fourth Commandment repeatedly while claiming to be little virtuosos. If we ever became parents, we would announce, we would not have this flaw nor that one. We would be perfect parents!

Now I am myself a mother. My children – ages 3 ½, 2 ½, and 1 year old – are too small to have anti-Mama gab sessions . . . but already are old enough to watch for Mama’s weaknesses and are quick to label Mama “naughty”. How quickly I see in them this same sin that characterized my childhood!

As for my expectation of perfection in motherhood, what has happened there? Well, if I now already tried to make a list of my weaknesses as a mother, it would have to be a list far longer than I as a child would ever have made for my mother. And if I now had to make a list for my mother, its size would be dwindled to microscopic proportions. Even those weaknesses I still see in her I would not dare to list because I have every one of them also myself.

I used to wonder how it could be that motherhood is a means to salvation for the woman. I now think that what I have been discussing is at least a part of the explanation. Through motherhood, God leads us as His children to see our own sins and weaknesses in a way we would never otherwise experience. And such sensitivity to our sin is the first requirement for salvation and comfort.

But motherhood, it seems to me, also leads to the woman’s salvation in relation to the second point of the Catechism. As children teach the mother her own weakness and sinfulness, she sees this same sinfulness in them. As she sees the sin in them, she experiences how futile will be all her efforts to lead them to righteousness. She begins to realize ever so keenly how she depends on the Holy Spirit through the Word to save them. And vicariously, in the very nature of motherhood, this makes her lean more and more on the Spirit also for her own spiritual needs.

Let me try to say this in another way. The fact is that no mother is able to produce perfect and holy and righteous children. If she could in her own strength produce anything at all, the children she would produce would only exhibit and magnify her own sinful characteristics. Unrighteousness can only produce unrighteousness. And the realization of this leads the sanctified mother to pray, earnestly pleading with God to overcome her sins and failures and to bless her children for His sake only, pleading on the basis of His promises and His faithfulness. Children make a mother realize how wholly dependent she is on God, learning that her best efforts are not only weak and sinful but also completely useless apart from God’s work of grace in the heart.

But as God leads the mother to lean on Him, He also leads her to find the blessedness in her calling. Although the struggle with sin in herself and her offspring will be continual, yet God’s work of grace will also become increasingly evident to bring thanksgiving and joy. Right in the midst of disciplining and training her children, there will be marks of godliness also, and here she will know she sees God’s blessing on her work. Is her work of training imperfect? Oh yes! so imperfect. But God’s work is always perfect, and what God begins He always finishes . . . and that gives joy and hope.

I thank God that He has allowed me to become a mother. I thank Him that through my children He is leading me to see more fully my sin, unpleasant though this learning may often be. I thank God that He shows me my need of Christ also through my children. And I thank Him with great rejoicing that the story does not end with imperfect mothers and imperfect children but that it ends in perfection. Where His grace operates, I know that the end result will be His perfection, present in father, mother, and children. And this perfection -of God and unto God and in God – will last for all eternity.

May God’s perfect work – in mother and in children – receive all the glory and praise. May He alone receive the praise also on this coming Mothers’ Day.