It’s easy to think of leadership as something other people do in big buildings in the city, wearing fancy designer clothes and having important meetings about things that are described with long words we can’t pronounce.
One definition of leadership I love is "the ability to influence people".
If moms aren’t influential in the home, I’m a monkey’s uncle! Let’s step into this important role God created and be effective leaders with our children, fulfilling the privilege of motherhood with grace, humor, and a biblical perspective.
I hope you recognize yourself in many of these traits and are encouraged to strengthen the muscles that are weak when you see those traits too. We’ve all got both, so keep your chin up, Mom, and keep running the race to win the prize in Christ Jesus! (Philippians 3:13-14).
L- listen, laugh, love
E- External, eternal, example
A- Action achieving advancement
D- Designing disciples daily
E- Extending empathy every day
R- Readily relying on the resurrection
L- listen, laugh, love
Mom has ears sensitive to the voices of her babes, not just to hear the odd clunk from a room across the house signaling a fall or injury, or the imperceptible breathing that marks a cry about to bound forth, but ears that truly listen to the heart of their child.
Their wishes, dreams, fears, stories, experiences, and perceptions. Their point of view, opinions, and realizations. Their struggles, hopes, and daily march toward sanctification in Christ Jesus. You do not just hear, mother, you listen.
Mom laughs and brings joy to the home. She sees the good and minimizes the bad. She smiles often and often hides her tears so as to not worry her brood. Her laugh is infectious and brings smiles to her children. This is often the very best medicine!
And mom loves.
This is easy, for a mother’s DNA is coded to love her children, fiercely, eternally.
Her love spans even the darkest sin and expands, never shrinking, each day she lives alongside her kin.
Her love is deep, sweet, and like a warm hug in the soul of her child. It is irreplaceable, unconditional, unparalleled, and perfectly partnered, with the love of the father, and the love of the Father.
Mom has a posture of listening, laughing, and loving.
E- external eternal example
Mom lives a life of sacrifice not only for her children but for her maker, her first love. She strives to model Christ-like behavior, although failing often, she knows his forgiveness covers her as she grows each day, little by little, alongside her kids.
She doesn’t hide away, as she knows little eyes are watching, but firmly exudes the character she is working to master, wearing her armor of God with pride for her children to see.
She understands that what comes against her own is not in human flesh but resides in heavenly realms.
Therefore, she does not hide her belt of truth, but is securely grounded and centered with it for her children to see.
That sensitive, easily broken thing, the heart, is protected by a breastplate of righteousness, which can never be broken.
Teaching and protecting, her feet never rest but move swiftly in peace, not distress.
She brazenly holds her shield of faith over her children, like eagles wings, dousing all the flaming arrows with prayer, scripture, teaching, and rebuking.
Her mind is not clouded, for she dons the helmet of salvation which keeps her laser-focused on her mission field.
She does not hesitate to eliminate the lies invading her sphere and strikes with deadly accuracy using the precision of the honed sword of the spirit, the Word of God, a weapon with no match.
Mom is an external eternal example of a warrior of God, defending her children into adulthood.
A-action achieving advancement
Mom is action-oriented, always taking the initiative to help, guide, train, and teach her children so they can advance in this world, and in the kingdom. She is a superhero fighter that never shies away from the work needed to prepare her children for adulthood.
She sees the weakness and finds resources to strengthen it.
She sees the hurt and finds the balm to heal it.
She sees talents and plants them in fertile soil, watering them often.
She sees the gifts and kneels at the cross with her child, thanking God he uses the young and gives them the same Holy Spirit to ignite their life.
Mom is tireless, although her body may feel fatigued, her spirit never becomes weary in the action needed to position her children for success in God’s economy of abundance.
D- designing disciples daily
Mom knows her main task is to design followers of Christ, who serve this world in grace and love, and through their actions and words bring the gospel of peace to the lost.
She disciplines in love, to correct and bend back the tender branch into conformity with the vine, allowing it to be pruned by the Gardener.
Mom prays with an unceasing heart that feels the heaviness of this burden and appeals to God with reverence for his name as the great I Am, recognizing his coming kingdom and will, and asking for daily help and provisions, praying her children will be forgivers and forgiven, and for protection from the enemy.
And she educates from a biblical worldview so that all knowledge will be from a place of truth because truth cannot be separated from knowledge or no wisdom resides in it, for truth is the way and the life.
E- extending empathy every day
Mom strives to understand and feel the emotional burden of being young and grappling with the things of this world.
She does not belittle a four-year-old who sheds a tear for a dead fly on the window sill but uses it as a teaching moment about life and death with a warm hug and a kiss on the pink flushed cheek of her child.
She understands growing up is hard work, and uses every moment to feel deeply with her children and validate their hearts, while also guiding them into the reality that the heart is a fickle thing which we should treat appropriately, and harness the power of the mind to bring truth, God’s truth, into every situation and not live by the rule of the emotional beasts within us.
Every day her kids grow older and become more rooted in the rich soil of our Lord, our foundation, and every day is new opportunities to extend tender nurturing of her quickly growing child, who will soon bloom into adulthood, keenly sensitive to their changing needs.
This deep empathy will be a lasting memory her children take into their future and pass on to their children, and so the legacy continues.
R-readily relying on the resurrection
Mom is on her knees daily at the cross with every worry, problem, or uncertainty, knowing the answers are not in her but in Jesus, the author, and perfecter of her faith.
She knows that it is in the person of Jesus that her faith is grounded so when she is at the end of her rope she looks to him, and he will be faithful to provide, comfort, and give hope.
Mom knows this hope is grounded in the victory Jesus won on the cross, and as he defeated death and was resurrected, so will she defeat the enemy and win the war for her kids hearts, alas the victory is already hers to claim!
She knows her children are loved infinitely more by God than even she can imagine, which stretches her comprehension because of her vast love for them. She understands he died for each one, so they can live with him forever, and is pushed to tell this story in many ways each day.
Mom knows she absolutely can’t do it alone, but needs the love of her Father in heaven to guide and direct her path into all righteousness so she does not lead her young ones astray, but leads them deeper into the bosom of our Lord.
And when she fails, which she often does, she knows Jesus is waiting with open arms to comfort her and ready her for battle once again, to fight for the lives of her children, to bring them into the Shepherds pen through that small and narrow gate, when so many are heading in the other direction through the gate which is wide and broad.
It feels like swimming upstream, with the force of the water pulling against her family, but she knows that simply letting go they will float easily through that broad gate like a leaf in a stream, and flow into the cesspool of this world where the enemy operates.
No, she will not let that happen.
She is a warrior, she is a superhero, she is a leader.
She is a mother.
