Motherhood: Your Ministry, Not Your Identity

Curled up in my favorite chair, I pulled my knees to my chest and sobbed. My heart was crushed by the critical words of a close family member. One of my biological children—now married with children—felt compelled to create and review a list. An actual printed list. A list of my parenting failures.

There is a sixteen-year age span between my oldest biological child and my youngest adopted child. But age isn’t the only difference. The five children who were engrafted into our family came with varying levels of trauma and prenatal exposure to substances. Over twenty-seven years of adoptive parenting, my husband and I learned we had to parent differently. But some of our adult children did not understand.

When a child’s brain has been impacted by trauma, a connected parenting approach is necessary. And when prenatal exposure to alcohol is involved, a neurobehavioral approach is vital. These parenting tools and strategies—so different from traditional parenting methods—are often misunderstood, especially by those who have never raised a neurodivergent child, including adult biological children. Perhaps there is no ill intent behind their opinions or unsolicited advice, but the assumptions can still wound deeply.

The criticism and condemnation shattered my heart and shook my identity as a mother.

As I cried and poured my heart out to the Lord, He gently but firmly spoke to my spirit:

“Motherhood is not your identity. Your identity is in Christ. Being a mother is what I called you to do. It is not who you are.”

Second Mothers 

Adoptive moms and foster and kinship caregivers are second mothers living in the shadow of a first mother. We welcome another woman’s child into our home and often pray for her healing, recovery, and reunification. Yet the choices she made, the options she lacked, and the trauma she experienced can impact not only her life, but her child’s life for years to come.

Second mothering is messy.

Women step into the role of second mother for many reasons. Some because of infertility. Some through blended families formed by marriage. Others, like me, because God called us to care for children in need of a safe and loving home. Regardless of how we became mothers, we embrace the role and shoulder the responsibilities of motherhood.

Being a mom is all-consuming. We are on call 24/7 as we love, protect, nurture, teach, and guide children into adulthood. Some parents raising children with special needs will continue parenting long after their child becomes a legal adult. We are in it for the long haul—because that is what mothers do.

As mothers raising other people’s children, our journey is uniquely difficult because of the neglect, abuse, trauma, and/or prenatal substance exposure our children experienced before coming to us. Every aspect of our lives—our marriages, other children, extended family relationships, friendships, work, ministry, church life, and future plans—is affected.

But we said yes to this child, and we keep saying yes because it is what God has called us to do.

The Ministry of Motherhood

Mothers are missionaries in full-time ministry.

Ministry is the act of serving God and others in the name of Jesus Christ. It includes sharing the Gospel, providing spiritual care, making disciples, and meeting physical and emotional needs.

Sounds a lot like motherhood to me.

The children in our homes—whether by birth, adoption, guardianship, or foster placement—are our mission field.

A missionary is sent out by God and the local church to an area of need for the purpose of sharing the Gospel and serving others in Jesus’ name. Missionaries proclaim their message in tangible ways: feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, teaching practical skills, providing education, and modeling a life of faith—sometimes among hostile people.

When I think of missionary heroes, I think of the five men killed in the jungles of Ecuador in 1956. Jim Elliot and Nate Saint were among the missionaries who died while attempting to bring the Gospel to the unreached Waorani tribe. The men were brutally speared to death.

Two years later, Elizabeth Elliot, along with her three-year-old daughter Valerie and Nate Saint’s sister Rachel, returned to Ecuador and chose to live among the very tribe who had killed their loved ones. These women poured out their lives to share the Gospel, and many Waorani eventually came to faith in Christ.

There are striking similarities between missionaries and foster and adoptive mothers. Both are called by God to lives of sacrificial service. Both minister to people who may respond with gratitude one day and rejection the next. Both experience isolation. Both desperately need support and community as they serve.

Mothers are missionaries planted in the ground like kernels of wheat. Sometimes it feels as though we are buried and nothing good is happening. Seeds die in the dirt, but through the unseen process of germination, new life begins to grow and more seeds are produced. Even when it appears all is lost, God is still at work.

“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” —John 12:24 NIV

We are on a mission to care for the children God has placed in our families. We may not have traveled to the jungles of Ecuador, but our mission field lives inside our homes.

Yet full-time ministry is what we do—not who we are.

Motherhood is Not Our Identity

That scathing report from an adult child shattered what I believed was my identity. But the Lord lovingly picked up the pieces and reminded me that being a mother is what I do—and by His grace, I do it well. It is the ministry He has called me to.

But it is not who I am.

My identity is in Christ.

I am a chosen and dearly loved child of God—and so are you.

On the messy mission field of motherhood, it is easy to forget who we are and Whose we are. We begin believing the lies of the enemy instead of the truth of God’s Word.

Below are reminders of your true identity in Christ.

You Are...

Chosen

“Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.” -Ephesians 1:4 NLT

Loved

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” -Romans 5:8 NIV

Adopted

“God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” -Ephesians 1:5 NLT

A Child of God

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” -1 John 3:1 NIV

An Heir

“Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ…” -Romans 8:17 NIV

Forgiven

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” -1 John 1:9 ESV

Redeemed

“For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed…but with the precious blood of Christ…” -1 Peter 1:18–19 NIV

God’s Masterpiece

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” -Ephesians 2:10 NLT

Seated with Christ

“And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus…” -Ephesians 2:6 NIV

Filled with Christ

“To them God chose to make known… the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” -Colossians 1:27 ESV

Called by God

“(God) who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ before the ages began,…” -2 Timothy 1:9 ESV

Walk in Your Identity

Harsh criticism may wound us, but it cannot steal our identity. Our identity is secure in Christ Jesus, and there is no condemnation for those who belong to Him (Romans 8:1).

On the hard days when we feel crushed—and even on the good days when confidence tempts us to find our worth in what we do rather than who we are—we must put on the helmet of salvation (Ephesians 6:17). Our salvation secures our identity, and no person or circumstance can take that from us.

So let’s choose to believe what God says about us in His Word. Let’s walk in Truth, firmly rooted in our identity in Christ, as we faithfully live out our God-given calling—the ministry of motherhood.