Life is made up of so much that gives the appearance of being futile. There are so many tasks and responsibilities that we intellectually know to be important but emotionally feel to be fruitless. And if everyone struggles with this to varying degrees, I have it on good authority that mothers are prone to struggle with it to a greater degree than most.
Simona Gorton is familiar with the challenges of motherhood and the struggle to find significance in it. This is the subject of her book Mothering Against Futility: Balancing Meaning and Mundanity in the Fear of the Lord. As she cared for her family and grappled with the mundane nature of so many of her tasks, she began to dig into the book of Ecclesiastes. She found that it spoke to so many of her challenges as a mother.
How could the multitude of inconsequential dishes and diapers and dinners that crowded my days feel so trivial but also hold so much real meaning as the building blocks of a life to which God had called me? How could my days as a mother, made up of “nothings” like going to the library and wiping small popsicle faces be the instruments of God’s eternal plan through generations? Ecclesiastes had an answer to this tension, and I started to meditate on the truths of this book as they applied to the days and to-do lists I was learning to submit to the Lord.
Her book is not a commentary on Ecclesiastes but rather a series of meditations on some of Ecclesiastes’ big themes applied specifically to the calling of a mother. “Ecclesiastes has something to say to us mothers,” she insists.
As we face the “vanity” of menial work every day, we have the privilege of learning to not only see through it to greater realities but to see the tasks themselves as accomplishing something of lasting value in us and in those around us. In the calling of motherhood, God transforms our sight and opens our eyes to the gospel dichotomies of weakness as strength, smallness as glory, inefficiency as faithfulness. Our lives and actions as mothers, surrendered to Him like loaves and fishes, can become stunning showpieces of gospel hope, glimpses of eternal hilarity and joy.
Gorton doesn’t write as someone who has found all the answers and solved every question. Rather, she writes as someone who is learning and growing even as she carries out her responsibilities as a wife and mother. Through ten chapters she reflects on ten different passages from Ecclesiastes and brings their truths to bear very pointedly and specifically on the joys and challenges of motherhood. She writes in the tone of a friend and sister rather than an authority or expert. She offers hope, help, and instruction in those ways mothers tend to struggle the most. She shows that the mundanity of motherhood is exactly where God gives mothers the opportunity to serve others and bring glory to his name.
Her prayer, she says, is that “you, my friend, might glean something of value as you read this little book and become increasingly equipped for the responsibilities of your days and the training of young warriors for the King. May our Jesus ever get all the glory for Himself.” May he, indeed. And may Mothering Against Futility equip many mothers to not just endure the challenges of motherhood, but to enjoy and embrace them as God’s good and perfect will for their lives.
