Does Her God Call Some Women to Childlessness?

30 Sep, 2012

As a christian woman I have been schooled in the ways of the Proverbs 31 chick. For those of you who don’t know her, she is a combination of The Virgin Mary, Martha Stewart and Supper Nanny, all in one flesh. She’s the gal whom her children rise up and call her blessed. She does so many good things and has so many plates balanced that I’ve come to the conclusion she was several women not just one.

But the main theme of this woman is her virtue as a mother, after all her children rise up and called her blessed! But then I came across an article Vogue published in August which made me question the value of a woman in the eyes of the church. In this article, a woman fought for her right to obtain sterilization. When she was 20, she began searching for doctors who would agree to perform a tubal ligation. She felt she would never be a good mom.

She was told several things,

“You’re too young.”

“You haven’t found the right man yet.”

“As a woman, that’s what God has designed you to be.”

Yet more and more women in our country are choosing to put off child rearing until their late 30′s, even some into their early 40′s. And then there are couples who are choosing NOT to have children all together.

I know several couples who are choosing to remain childless and the idea just baffles me. I never wanted to be a mom (or so I thought in my younger years) and now I can’t imagine life without them. But my thoughts drift back to the one comment, “As a woman, that’s what God has designed you to be.” Is that all we were created to be? It’s the most noble role we could ever play in a lifetime…

Does God call some women to childlessness? If so, which I think he has, what does this reveal about our roles as women in the church? Have we unearthed a deeper matter?

The woman in this article opened my eyes to the fact that God has a broader scope and game plan than I had ever imagined. While he has called me to mother, he may be calling other women to childlessness in order to touch lives of others in a more dramatic way. While I’ve been called to pour my life into my kids, God is calling other women (other couples) to pour their lives out on other people. And if our churches see us as JUST mothers, we have some work to do.

What do you think a woman’s role in the church is?