Silent No More

“Our children need grace, but we need grace as well. The Spirit is using our parenting to shape and refine us, which in turn affects our parenting. It’s a circle of grace. We don’t see it now, but the process of being refined through the mundanity of motherhood will reap a harvest of fruit in our own lives as well as our children’s.” 

The End of Me by Liz Wann is a winsome, insightful look into “finding resurrection life in the daily sacrifices of motherhood.” The author doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but she is consistently pointing to the God who does. She uses examples from her own life, and from other’s lives, to remind the reader that Jesus is an ever present, tangible help for the daily sufferings we all face as mothers. As she so accurately points out, “You’ve got this, mama, because you’ve got Jesus.” 

She systematically reminds us that Jesus meets us in hard moments, that we can find glory in the mundane, and that rest is important and helps release burdens. She also reminds us that being weak and needy is part of the plan of God, and doesn’t speak to our failures but rather reminds us of our created state. She states, “Not feeling needy is actually when we are most needy” and points out the pride in thinking we can do it all ourselves. 

Perhaps the best chapter in the book is titled “When Mom is Called to Suffer”. She reminds us that suffering is a part of the plan of God, and we are never alone in it. There is resurrection after Gethsemane. “God uses the ‘deaths’ in suffering to bring about spiritual life in us.” She then goes on to detail how we are to follow in the pattern of God, daily sacrificing ourselves for the great call God has placed on our lives. Lastly, she points us to the gospel hope we have in resurrected motherhood. 

This is an easy to read, encouraging book that I would highly recommend for all mothers who find themselves struggling to remember why we do what we do. In the end, it is God who works in us, and the gospel that provides us hope, and Wann does a phenomenal job of reminding us of these wonderful truths.