Be a Happy Mom for Other Moms

“What can I do for you?” we moms love to ask each other. As soon as the one answers the question, the other answers the call. Meals appear from thin air; playdates pop up like crop circles. We clean, we carpool, we listen, we brainstorm. We arrive early and stay late. If you’re like one of my mom-friends, you show up at dawn with a toddler, a baby, and pancake batter in hand, so that the other mother (i.e., me) can get some sleep — hours and hours of sleep — after surgery. A mom’s super-strength isn’t reserved for her family. Her friends’ families also benefit.

But recently, a mom asked me to do something that I’ve never been asked to do, a request rarer than steak tartare and tougher to fulfill than feeding a gaggle of kids. My friend had just finished describing her long days and trying season. “What can I do for you?” I asked. Her response?

“Be a happy mom.”

From Survival to Joy

Christian moms are quick to help each other survive parenting. How quick are we to help each other enjoy it?

Perhaps more often than not, we’re slow as snails — and probably for several reasons. For one, grumpy parenting does more than pervade our culture. Our culture tends to celebrate grumpy parenting. When I announced my first pregnancy to my then-coworkers, the loudest respondent told me to “say goodbye to who you are.” The other parents didn’t push back; they nodded, laughing and grimacing in equal measure as they recounted bygone freedoms. Or I’ve heard of a baby shower in which the gifts were one part diapers and one part alcohol. The expectant mother was “gonna need it.” Grumbling is one of the flesh’s main food groups. Apart from Christ, modern culture has little reason not to feast on it.

Another reason is that, unlike fleshly complaint, joy in sacrifice is supernatural. It cannot survive apart from God’s wisdom, God’s grace, God’s power. And in fact, one way we access his help is through his people. How can a Christian mom possibly be happy amid the hardest parts of motherhood? Other Christian moms can be happy alongside her.

No One-Woman Show

In Acts 2:42–47, Luke maps out a stunning constellation of the Christian life. Following the day of Pentecost, the early church devoted itself “to the apostles’ teaching and . . . to the breaking of bread [or Communion] and the prayers” (verse 42). Charity toward the needy abounded: “Possessions and belongings” were sold, the proceeds distributed (verse 45). Each day saw temple worship, open homes, shared meals (verse 46). In a word, “glad and generous hearts” were busy “praising God” (verses 46–47).

Of all the activities Luke mentions, not a single one is done in isolation. The words they, themselves, their, all, and together appear fourteen times in six verses! Why all the plurality? Because “fellowship” (verse 42) is one major fuel on which God designed the Christian life to run. The self-sacrifice, joy, and worship on full display in Acts 2 should dazzle us — and deepen our sense that godliness flourishes in godly community. A single star doesn’t make a constellation. To see the beauty of Orion, you must behold together Betelgeuse, Rigel, Bellatrix, and Saiph; Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. God’s bride isn’t one person. God’s bride is a church, full of untold numbers of people, all learning to live as God’s bride together.

“Joy in sacrifice is supernatural. It cannot survive apart from God’s wisdom, God’s grace, God’s power.”

What a gracious reality for believing moms. God doesn’t intend for us to fight for joy in sacrifice like a boxer in a ring: sweat dripping down our face, muscles a millisecond from giving out, people jeering at us — alone. Matthew 16:24 doesn’t say, “Jesus told one person, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’” Rather, Matthew records, “Jesus told his disciples.” Bearing the cross gladly is a community affair for the Christian.

In his kindness, God made motherhood more like a marathon than a boxing match. However little food, sleep, and emotional stability we’re running on, one look to our left and we’ll find women, thousands of them, running just the same. Imagine how all our races would change, if we found each other smiling. What if mutual encouragement, not mutual complaint, joined the sound of our pounding feet? When one mother sees her path as a privilege, the next is a thousand times quicker to thank Providence, too.

What Kind of ‘Happy Mom’?

God delights to use the delight of other mothers to increase our own delight. For that to happen, we actually have to be mothers who delight. But delight in what? Is the ultimate aim to enjoy smelling like spit-up and walking around sleep-deprived? Are we to treasure the toddler’s tantrum or the teenager’s signature eye roll?

When I write, “Be a happy mom,” I don’t mean, “Pretend that hard is easy. Act like you aren’t worn down. Never open up, and never tear up.” No, even with the Holy Spirit inside us and the Scriptures before us, parenting is not a walk in the park. A marathon still lasts a grueling 26.2 miles, even with grateful, gritty runners striving beside us. Who among us smiles at the sound of sibling brawls? I often cry after long days of my kids’ defiance and my own mistaken responses. Yet even in tears, what I can take satisfaction in — what every mother, on whatever day, can take satisfaction in — is the God behind, over, and in the day.

By grace through faith, we can “rejoice in the Lord” — when? — “always” (Philippians 4:4). Because no matter what a mother may face during her day, in her God “there is fullness of joy . . . forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). He is a hearty feast for the depleted soul on nights when the whole family has the stomach flu (John 6:35); he is an all-satisfying drink for moms on mornings when no kid seems happy with anything (John 4:14). Like Paul, we possess the one fare necessary to contentment in every circumstance: Christ (Philippians 4:11–13). Unsavory circumstances often serve to make him taste that much sweeter.

Wonderfully, the better he tastes, the better the day itself will taste. “This is the day that the Lord has made,” says Psalm 118:24. “The Lord” — you mean my Savior and Lord, my Treasure and Friend? The one in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:19), who promises never to leave me nor forsake me (Hebrews 13:5) and always to work all things for my good (Romans 8:28)? Well, if this is the day that he has made, then by all means, “let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).

Moms as Marathoners

There’s that communal word again: us. Mothers, let us rejoice in our God side by side, like marathoners. And as we rejoice in him, let us learn to be glad in the days he’s given us as mothers, come what may. Perhaps few groups need to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works” as much as we do (Hebrews 10:24).

And perhaps few actions help other moms as much as being a happy mom yourself.