5 Ways to Encourage Moms of Young Kids

 Here's a recent article I wrote for the TGC.

When I was a mom of young kids, I wanted to practice hospitality more, but I was perpetually exhausted. I didn’t have the capacity to make our apartment presentable, plan and cook a meal, and clean up while still caring for two energetic boys who woke up throughout the night. But thanks to a young couple named David and Shelby, I didn’t have to.

They regularly visited our home and seamlessly wove themselves into our lives through simple acts of love: reading a bedtime story with our boys, coming to play games after the kids were asleep, bringing a meal component, or offering to babysit and then staying to chat when we returned. I eagerly received their hospitality in my own home.

Through their lives, and the lives of others in my local church, I witnessed the love of Christ while parenting little ones and it inspired me to care for others—even if their season of life didn’t match my own.

Encouraging Moms in the Church

Being a mother, especially to children under age three, can be exhausting. Moms of little ones often go days without much adult conversation and miss portions of church services to care for their children. They may struggle to find relationships beyond those with other moms and feel like all their conversations center on surviving a new parenting phase.

The Bible exhorts us to encourage one another (1 Thess. 5:11; Rom. 1:12) and not to limit that to only those in a similar season of life. The church is intended to connect across the generations (Ps. 145:4; Titus 2:3–4). Whether single, an empty nester, married without kids, or overflowing with children, you can encourage fellow believers—including young mothers. God can use seemingly mismatched life seasons to sharpen the faith of young moms as each of us step out of our own bubbles and onto the common ground of connection in Christ.

But sometimes it can be challenging to figure out how to do this well. Here are five ways you can encourage moms of young children in your church.

Read the rest of this piece on TGC.