Spiritual Motherhood: A Titus 2 Command, Part 1

Life is busy. Family units are often separated, leaving young mothers to navigate family life with little to no older women in her life to help with questions or support. Church classes are usually separated by age, disallowing the older women and younger from getting to know one another. Sometimes there is little time for visiting or sharing burdens, which keeps those who could mentor from knowing the need. Some churches have regular ladies’ meetings, but it becomes expected that the Pastor’s wife is the only one capable of spiritual mothering.

Surely there is nothing new under the sun, as Paul addressed the issue of spiritual growth in the young women of Pastor Titus’ church in Titus 2. While Pastor Titus was to take responsibility for teaching the men and older women, the younger women were to find instruction under the wing of the faithful, loving supervision of spiritual mothers. Very few Christians know how to accomplish this, however. Elisabeth Elliot lamented in her book, Keep a Quiet Heart, “Where are the women, single or married willing to hear God’s call to spiritual motherhood, taking spiritual daughters under their wings to school them?” She challenges those willing to heed this call with a few suggestions.

1. Pray about it. Ask God to show you whom, what, how.
2. Consider writing notes to or telephoning some younger woman who needs encouragement in the areas Paul mentioned.
3. Ask a young mother if you may do her ironing, take the children out, babysit so she can go out, make cake or a casserole for her.  
4. Invite someone to tea, find out what she’d like you to pray for, and pray with her.
5. Start a little prayer group of two or three whom you can cheer and help. You’ll be cheered and helped too!
6. Organize a volunteer housecleaning pool to go out every other week or once a month to somebody who needs you.
7. Have a lending library of books of real spiritual food.
8. Be the first of a group in your church to be known as a Woman of Titus Two and see what happens. (adapted from pgs. 161-162 of Keep a Quiet Heart).

A recent question from my social media page spurred my thinking on the need for such a ministry of spiritual motherhood.  Her question, “How can a woman age with grace?” brought my thoughts back to a sweet 90-year-old friend I visited in the nursing home every week several years ago. Though some of the sin patterns of anxiety she allowed to thrive in her early life caused her more problems in her later days, she still exhibited the joy of the Lord at every visit. When I would ask her how she was, she always replied that there was no use complaining because no one cared anyway. Then she would laugh and laugh! She would tell me of her early days and lessons the Lord had taught her along the way.

She is in heaven now, and maybe the Lord has filled her in on the many ways she influenced my life even while her body failed day by day. Her desire to give back what she could: encouragement by her testimony of how the Lord had brought her through, made her a spiritual mother to me. Her joy in the Lord made her radiantly beautiful. When I think of someone who aged with grace until her last days, I think of Mrs. Raney.

A woman aging with grace keeps before her the wisdom of Proverbs 31:30-31.

Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

Aging with grace takes care of the temple of our bodies to the best of our ability, but it is much more interested in using our temples as fully as possible for the Lord for as long as possible. A life that pours out the lovingkindness of the Lord, especially to those still navigating their journeys in the early stages, will leave a sweet aroma of remembrance in every life she touches. This is the legacy of a spiritual mother.

The next post, part 2, will include a more formal arrangment that can be adapted for churches to match older and younger women together more intentionally. Stay tuned for that pdf download next week!

Have a blessed weekend!