Before motherhood, I knew that becoming a mom would change my life.
I knew my days would look different. I knew my priorities would shift. I knew I would love these little people in a way I couldn't yet understand.
What I didn't know was just how much motherhood would change me.
It has made me stronger and softer at the same time. It has given me a voice I didn't know I had, connected me to women I may never meet, taught me to surrender what I cannot control, and reminded me to pay attention to the ordinary moments of my life while I'm still living them.
Motherhood Gave Me a Voice
I didn't always consider myself someone who would speak up.
Motherhood changed that.
There is something about being responsible for another human being that makes you discover parts of yourself you didn't know existed. I learned to ask questions. To trust my instincts. To advocate. To say no. To keep pushing when something didn't feel right.
I found a strength in myself that had probably always been there—I just hadn't needed to call on it yet.
Over the years, that voice has grown beyond advocating for my own children. It's shaped the way I support other women, too.
Motherhood taught me that a woman can be gentle and still be incredibly strong. She can be compassionate and still take up space. She can listen to the experts in the room while remembering that her own voice belongs there, too.
Motherhood Made Me Softer
In becoming stronger, somehow I also became softer.
I notice mothers differently now.
I see the mom with the crying toddler in the grocery store and wonder what kind of morning she's had.
I see the woman whose pregnancy or birth didn't unfold the way she hoped and understand that there can be grief tangled up inside gratitude.
I see the mother caring for a child with needs she never anticipated and know how much of her life may exist behind the scenes.
Motherhood has taught me that we rarely know the whole story of another woman's journey.
There are a thousand different ways to be a mother and a thousand different things we carry.
Knowing that has made me slower to judge and quicker to offer grace.
Motherhood Gave Me a Connection
One of my favorite things about motherhood is realizing how old this story is.
For as long as there have been mothers, women have rocked babies through sleepless nights. They've worried about fevers. They've watched first steps. They've wondered if they were doing enough. They've laughed at things their children said and cried over how quickly they were growing.
Our circumstances change. Our homes and our tools and our parenting books change.
But so much of motherhood doesn't.
There is something comforting about knowing that somewhere in the world, another mother is walking through a season that looks a lot like mine—and that generations of women before me have stood in these same places, too.
Motherhood can sometimes feel isolating, but I've come to realize that I am part of an enormous community of women stretching across cultures, generations, and time.
Motherhood Taught Me to Surrender
Motherhood has also taught me one of the hardest lessons of my life: I am not in control.
I can protect my children. Advocate for them. Teach them. Pray over them. Make choices with their best interests at heart and love them with everything I have.
But ultimately, their lives are not mine to control.
My children are gifts God has entrusted to me, but before they were ever mine, they were His. And in even deeper ways than they belong to me, they belong to Him.
That truth has brought me comfort in some seasons and required enormous faith in others.
There have been times when I desperately wanted to know how a story would turn out. Times when I wanted answers, certainty, or the ability to fix something that wasn't mine to fix.
Motherhood keeps bringing me back to surrender.
To hold my children fiercely, but with open hands.
To recognize that my job is to love them, guide them, advocate for them, and steward the time I've been given with them—not to write every chapter of their stories.
There is freedom in that, even when it is difficult.
I don't have to know everything that comes next.
I just have to be faithful with the children and the season God has placed in front of me today.
Motherhood Taught Me to Be Present
Maybe the greatest thing motherhood has taught me is to pay attention.
Because the seasons really do move that quickly.
I remember those first tiny flutters inside my belly that eventually became unmistakable kicks.
I remember holding newborns against my chest and studying faces I had waited months to see.
And now there are homeschool assignments spread across the table. There are conversations with children who have their own ideas and opinions. There are inside jokes and big questions and a ten-year-old who can genuinely make me laugh.
There are still little ones who need me for almost everything, alongside bigger kids who need me in entirely new ways.
Motherhood keeps reminding me not to rush ahead.
There will always be another milestone we're waiting for, another difficult phase we're hoping to get through, another season just around the corner.
But this one matters, too.
The belly kicks mattered.
The sleepless newborn nights mattered.
The toddler years mattered.
And these ordinary afternoons—schoolwork at the table, someone asking for a snack, laughter coming from the other room—matter just as much.
I know now that someday I will miss pieces of the life that feels completely ordinary today.
So I try to be here for it.
Motherhood has made me stronger than I knew I could be and softer than I used to be. It has given me a voice while teaching me to listen more closely to the stories of other women. It has connected me to generations of mothers who came before me, and it has taught me to hold the children God has given me with both fierce love and open hands.
And perhaps most importantly, it has taught me that motherhood isn't something I need to hurry through to get to the next season.
This is the season.
And I want to be present enough to remember it.
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Serving Families Throughout the Triad & Triangle of North Carolina
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