In The Five Aspects of Woman, Barbara Mouser discusses the sanctity of motherhood – the setting yourself aside for the purpose of motherhood. She explores the reasons women may try and “fit motherhood in around the edges” rather than devote themselves to it as they would a career or cause. The reasons are fairly obvious…no instant gratification, no accolades, acknowledgments, or awards, no salary, and yet the requirement of an all-out surrendering of your time, your body, your sleep, your mental energy…..at times, your whole self.

This just seems like a very long, painful, and unnecessary route to maturity, respect, and security. And though there are other paths beside motherhood to these things, listen to the requirements of the early church for the taking in of widows who are in need of financial support. These widows were provided for by the church in return for their service in the church and ministry to other women.

“The best convent,” I (Katy) said, “for a woman is the seclusion of her own home. There she may find her vocation and fight her battles, and there she may learn the reality and the earnestness of life.”

“Pshaw!” cried she (Miss Clifford, the “patient”). “Excuse me, however, for saying that; but some of the most brilliant girls I know have settled down into mere married women and spend their whole time in nursing babies! Think how belittling!”

“Is it more so than spending it in dressing, driving, dancing, and the like?”

“Of course it is. I had a friend once who shone like a star in society. She married and had four children as fast as she could. Well! What was the consequence? She lost her beauty, lost her spirit and animation, lost her youth, and lost her health. The only earthly things she can talk about are teething, dieting, and the measles!”

“As you have spoken plainly to me, knowing me to be a wife and a mother, you must allow me to speak plainly in return,” I began.

“Oh, speak plainly, by all means! I am quite sick and tired of having truth served up in pink cotton and scented with lavender.”

“Then you will permit me to say that when you speak contemptuously of the vocation of maternity, you dishonor not only the mother who bore you but the Lord Jesus Himself, who chose to be born of woman and to be ministered unto by her through a helpless infancy.”

Miss Clifford was a little startled.

“How terribly earnest you are!” she said. It is plain that to you, at any rate, life is indeed no humbug.”

I thought of my dear ones, of Ernest, of my children, of Mother, and of James; and I thought of my love for them and theirs for me. And I thought of Him who alone gives reality to even such joys as these. My face must have been illuminated by the thought, for she dropped the bantering tone she had used hitherto and asked with real earnestness:

“What is it you know, and that I do not know, that makes you so satisfied while I am so dissatisfied?”

I hesitated before I answered, feeling as I never felt before, how ignorant, how unfit to lead others I really am. Then I said:

“Perhaps you need to know God, to know Christ.”