The Mercies and Tensions of Re-entry: The Professional Cost and Eternal Worth of Motherhood
If someone had told the younger, intellectual, career-focused version of me, some twenty years ago, that the entirety of my thirties would be spent in a wonderfully sleep-deprived, hazy soup of maternity bras, nappies, and general small-person chaos, I would have laughed. Not just a shallow, flippant, dismissive laugh, but a deep, roaring belly laugh. The kind that is uncontrollable and real.
But motherhood, somewhat haphazardly, took hold. Gripped by a deeply life-altering conversion to Christianity in my late twenties, my life took a shape I had not planned, and certainly one that did not match my intended career trajectory. I thought motherhood would fit in around my life and work. Instead, it became, like a compelling novel, something that consumed and transformed me: flooding into tightly held parts of myself, shaping and altering the rhythms, priorities, and idealised sense of who I was. Wanting to be faithful in the roles God had given me as our family ministered together during those years, I stepped away from professional life to stay at home with our children, as much as possible.
Fast-forward a decade. With four children now at school, I have begun to emerge from the foggy chrysalis that was my baby-raising thirties. Mildly dazed and experiencing something akin to culture shock, I have discovered that the relative ease with which I stepped away from professional life has not been matched by an equally smooth return.
As I eagerly stand on the other side of those small years, ready to use my skills and gifts for God's glory, alongside my ongoing work of family and home, I have been faced with wildly differing views of what God and the world say is true about the value of that time. Far from being a heritage from the Lord (Psalm 127:3) and a profound investment in my family, the time spent “off” with my children in motherhood is viewed as an irrelevant gap. Rather than being recognised as formative and character-shaping, growing my resilience, perseverance, and adaptability in ways no workplace ever could, those years somehow seem to diminish my professional value. There is an unwritten socially acceptable number of years allowable on a CV for “family commitments and community pursuits,” and I have well and truly exceeded my quota. What I thought was a career pause has often felt like a motherhood stain. Like a scarlet letter stitched onto my chest, it signifies to the world that I spent time in professional darkness, devoid of growth or value. My professional gap loudly proclaims what society values about work, children, and motherhood. The years God has most profoundly used to shape me are the very same years the professional world seems to value least.
In a cruel turn of events, I find myself in an unfamiliar place, looking toward the professional world I once quite comfortably inhabited, a more able and equipped contributor, ready to serve, yet I am strangely held outside, waiting to be invited in. This season of re-entry has been long and painful, marked with countless applications and interviews, rejection and disappointment. It has also been lonely, shaped by unspoken realities of the professional world, and broader cultural stories around value and identity. God though, in His great kindness, has graciously used this time, a season of waiting and frustration, to shape me through the difficult process of growth, repentance, dependence, and renewal.
When rejection has tempted me to measure my worth by professional success, competitiveness, the size of my home, value of my car, or the balance of my superannuation, the Lord has quietly reminded me that I live for His approval alone, and not the approval of others (Galatians 1:10). That I am called to be transformed by Him, and not conformed to this world (Romans 12:2), and that my life is shaped by what I allow to take root in my heart and mind (Proverbs 4:23).
When this season has exposed the unrealised idols of my heart, and I have blamed my children, at least in thought, for the way their existence has robbed me of my professional worth, God has patiently met me there and led me to repentance. He has reminded me of His provision and sovereignty, His creative mastery displayed through my children, and His great kindness in allowing me the privilege of staying home and investing deeply in them despite the sacrifices involved. More often than I like to admit, I have returned to the foot of the cross. Laying my shame before our God who sits with us in our pain, understanding every trial we face. He is never absent or indifferent. Never regretful of us, His dearly loved children. In Christ, he enters into our every struggle, providing undeserved, abounding grace.
The enemy, though, has loved the pain and shame of this season, whispering that my study was wasted, that I have nothing to offer, and I should simply give up. God, however, preaching His truth to my heart, reminds me that His timing is perfect (Ecclesiastes 3:1); that I am fearfully and wonderfully made in His image, uniquely fashioned with gifts, interests, and abilities that come only from Him (Psalm 139:14); and that His plans and purposes are known to Him, built on a far more stable eternal perspective than my own fragile temporal one (Jeremiah 29:11).
I am reminded that this season, like the small years before it, will eventually pass. But just as God worked through those sleep-deprived nights, teaching me the rich blessings that come from laying down my life for others, the Lord is patiently and tenderly shaping my eternal identity and value in this season too. The world may see those years of full-time motherhood as a waste, but God does not. He sees sacrifice in faithfulness and a time of rich character formation. They form part of His ongoing work of shaping me, a broken pilgrim whose life is not her own, but which belongs to a kind, dependable, and faithful God. He patiently holds my hand in every season and continually calls me to look only to Him for the definition of my value and worth.
Claire is a deep-thinking mum of four and follower of Jesus who lives in beautiful Lutruwita/Tasmania. Married to an Anglican minister, Claire has served alongside her husband in church planting and parish ministry roles, and through their work with Bush Church Aid and City to City Global. Claire is a Heritage Consultant by profession with a speciality in the built environment. She is passionate about history and heritage, and how our connections to place and past inform our understanding of who we are as individuals and society.
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