A popular evangelical author recently posted a rather lengthy thread explaining how heartbreaking it is for her to leave her husband and kids behind for work. Her chosen work takes her away from home regularly for painful stretches of time, and her heart is “torn” in two over how often she isn’t home. She is a woman who simply cannot be home as much as she desires, despite the internal ‘voice’ that tells her to go home. She said her situation (where she has to travel in order to get her message out or “be silent”) is largely because the church—a 2,000 year old institution led by God—just doesn’t know what to do with a woman of her skill set. 

Her rather intense claims came with far too many retweets and likes than we should be comfortable with, so I would like to offer a few thoughts:

1. There is never a time when God wills that you abandon your duty to your family so that more people can hear you teach. If what you are teaching is simply the Gospel, mothers, never fear! Local churches are tasked with this job. It is not your burden. It is decidedly not the job of a wife and mother from 800 miles away to feed the local sheep.

2. It is erroneous to claim that the church doesn’t know “what to do” with women that can teach. Scripture is very plain about what we should be doing with our gifts. Nowhere will you find a call for women to leave their children behind to encourage someone else’s wives or children elsewhere. YOUR family is your first duty. And women are instructed by the Apostle Paul to teach! Check it out:

Titus 2:3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, 4 so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.

Of course, I am not arguing that it is a sin to travel or *gasp* leave the home. That’s not the issue at hand. I add this necessary caveat for the feminists that read the previous Scripture reference and are still with us. (Brava!) Mothers can take vacations and travel for work and yes I probably DO have to state this because this is where we find ourselves in evangelicalism. The author of this Twitter thread actually believes that she has to CHOOSE between regularly leaving her children for large chunks of time and being utterly silent. Categories. Not our strong suit! 

3. It’s embarrassing how embarrassed evangelicalism is of motherhood—and it’s hilarious how funny we can be when we want to excuse ourselves from our duties and cover it all with very pious sounding talk. You know. God called me to this heartbreaking difficulty. The church doesn’t know what to do with my skills so I soldier on, far from home! 

Really, though? Is that what is happening? Are these our heroes? Women that proudly eschew ordinary faithfulness for speaking engagements because the church just doesn’t understand them and they have to fulfill their ‘calling’ somehow? Mothers who think God calls them to encourage someone else’s children before their own? That’s who we have training the next generation of women? 

You are being played. You are exchanging the very real glory that the Lord offers to women for a lie. There is no love you can justly share with other women if the price tag is the hearts of your own children. Even unbelievers know that. 

SUMMER JAEGER