The standard issue uniform for mothering is steel toed boots, a referee jersey, a chef’s hat, a therapist’s notepad, and FBI credentials, and you never get to take it off. Under all of that is a quieter question, what is actually being formed in the children watching you.

In this message, we turn to Luke 1 and 2, to a young woman who says yes to God before she knows the cost and then sings a song stitched together from thirty fragments of Scripture. Jesus was not raised in a vacuum. He was raised in her home.

Make your house templed space instead of a place you leave in order to worship. Let Scripture be the language your children hear on ordinary days, protect quiet time from the schedule, and forgive yourself for the days you get it wrong. Mary needed grace too, and she had it.