Top Five Ways Motherhood Has Shaped Me

May 08 2025 Top Five Ways Motherhood Has Shaped Me

I wasn’t a girl who wanted to be a mom. Yes, I played with dolls, but it wasn’t my heart’s desire to mother. Yet, once I became pregnant with my oldest son, I was altered in the sweetest ways: the nurturing, mothering hormones coursed through my body, and I became someone new.

Motherhood is a voyage that turned my world upside down and simultaneously made it right side up. As a new grandma, I’ve reflected on mom life as I transition into this next era. The following are the top five ways “moming” has shaped me (so far).

1. Resilience

Whether powering through sleepless nights, potty training, teaching teens to drive, adolescent emotions, college drop-offs, nest-emptying, private parent pain, or watching my young adults make their own choices, I’ve developed buoyancy and a determination to lean on God through every bit.

 2. Wisdom

As a new mom, I felt like an expert because I read dozens of books and observed other people’s parenting.  Wow, how wrong I was (and a bit obnoxious). I knew next to nothing and soon realized how wise my mom, mother-in-law, and the other older women in my life were. I’m still not the wisest mom around, but through humility, I’ve learned to soak up knowledge from those who’ve gone before and walked beside me.

 3. Humor

Laughter saves me, and it is often at my expense. For example, when I forgot my kids’ names in moments of madness as I tried to discipline them. Once, I performed on stage covered in toddler throw-up. I spent an entire plane ride with my lap covered in baby poop. One of my boys once told me I was not as pretty as the dog. Then, there was a fun moment in a store line when my five-year-old spoke at a piercing level, pronouncing how ugly he thought a man next to us was. As the saying goes, if you don’t laugh, you cry, and I’ve done loads of both in the chaos of life with four sons.

 4. Unconditional Love

Can we compare a mother’s love to God’s? I believe so. It’s fierce, vast, and unbreakable. Even when they call you “mean” for not letting them eat glue as a toddler or break your heart with their crushing choices as an adult. It’s taught me more than all the combined sermons on love I’ve heard. This enormous, bursting-my-heart-love stretches my soul to make room for grace, again and again.

5. Faith

Some days, all I had was prayer—and chocolate. Motherhood brings me to my knees (not only when I’m cleaning a mess off the floor). My Counselor, Comforter, Savior, and Best Friend is the wind beneath my wings and my secret to sanity most days. As I cling to His Word and trust Him with my precious brood, He reminds me that my love is louder than my failures.

I stop here, but the list continues, of course. This sacred, stretching journey of motherhood has not produced perfection but instead made me whole with a long thread of grace woven through. I am someone my pre-parent selfish self never thought she would be. She may have been shocked by the wrinkles and grey hair forcing its way. But these are trophies I exhibit with pride because of Samuel, Noah, Josiah, and Micah —my treasures beyond measure.