As the mom of 8 children who are in a WIDE variety of ages and stages (diapers to college), I constantly crave biblical guidance from authors I trust. In some ways these authors play the part of mentors in my life; and their words are always available when I need them! The 8 Encouraging Books For Christian Mothers I have listed below speak on a wide variety of topics. The first is all about establishing home-building and God-centered traditions; and cultivating an environment in which your family will flourish. One is about embracing your season and finding the joy and freedom that comes in cultivating what matters. Another is about the gift of tradition that our children need so badly. And one is about uncovering the hidden corners of our cities and neighborhoods and investing deeply in the lives of people around us.
Whether you pick up one or all eight of these books, I know you’ll be greatly encouraged by them in your own ministry of motherhood. Raising little people is hard work; we need all the encouragement we can get!
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The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming by Sally & Sarah Clarkson
Does your home sometimes feel like just a place to eat, sleep, and change clothes on the way to the next activity? Do you long for “home” to mean more than a place where you stash your stuff? Wouldn’t you love it to become a haven of warmth, rest, and joy . . . the one place where you and your family can’t wait to be?
There is good news waiting for you in the pages of The Lifegiving Home. Every day of your family’s life can be as special and important to you as it already is to God. In this unique book designed to help your family enjoy and celebrate every month of the year together, you’ll discover the secrets of a life-giving home from a mother who created one and her daughter who was raised in it: popular authors Sally and Sarah Clarkson. Together they offer a rich treasure of wise advice, spiritual principles, and practical suggestions.
You’ll embark on a new path to creating special memories for your children; establishing home-building and God-centered traditions; and cultivating an environment in which your family will flourish. (Don’t miss the companion piece, The Lifegiving Home Experience.) I would also highly recommend The Lifegiving Table: Nurturing Faith through Feasting, One Meal at a Time. Both of these are great books for encouraging Christian mothers!
cultivate: a Grace-filled guide to growing an intentional life by lara casey
Women often feel like they have to have it all together in order to live a meaningful life. Instead they feel inadequate, overwhelmed, and exhausted as they to figure out how to do it all. Author, business owner, and mom to three Lara Casey offers this grace-filled advice: “We can’t do it all, and do it well. But, we can choose to cultivate what matters”.
Written as part encouragement anthem and part practical guide, Cultivate offers wisdom from God’s Word alongside lessons Lara has learned in her garden.
Special features include:
- Actionable Cultivate It prompts throughout the book
- A ten-week Cultivate Together discussion guide with questions for small groups
- “Grace from the Garden” vignettes provide encouragement and inspiration
Discover how to embrace the season you’re in, and find the joy and the freedom that comes in cultivating what matters, little by little, with God’s transforming grace.
Rhythms of Renewal: Trading Stress and Anxiety for a Life of Peace and Purpose by Rebekah Lyons
As a society, we are in the throes of a collective panic attack. Anxiety and loneliness are on the rise, with 77% of our population experiencing physical symptoms of stress on a regular basis. We feel pressure chasing careers, security, and keeping up. We worry about health, politics, and many other complexities we can’t control. Eventually we find our minds spinning, trying to cope or manage a low hum of anxiety, unlike ever before.
But it doesn’t have to stay this way.
In Rhythms of Renewal, Rebekah draws from her own battle with depression and anxiety and shares a pathway to establish four life-giving rhythms that quiet inner chaos and make room for a flourishing life. By taking time to rest, restore, connect, and create, you will discover how to:
- Take charge of your emotional health and inspire your loved ones to do the same
- Overcome anxiety by establishing daily habits that keep you mentally and physically strong
- Find joy through restored relationships in your family and community
- Walk in confidence with the unique gifts you have to offer the world
I also really enjoyed Lyon’s Freefall to Fly: A Breathtaking Journey Toward a Life of Meaning.
RAISING GRATEFUL KIDS IN AN ENTITLED WORLD: HOW ONE FAMILY LEARNED THAT SAYING NO CAN LEAD TO LIFE’S BIGGEST YES BY KRISTEN WELCH
“But everyone else has it.” “If you loved me, you’d get it for me!” When you hear these comments from your kids, it can be tough not to cave. You love your children―don’t you want them to be happy and to fit in?
Kristen Welch knows firsthand it’s not that easy. In fact, she’s found out that when you say yes too often, it’s not only hard on your peace of mind and your wallet―it actually puts your kids at long-term risk. In Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World, Kristen shares the ups and downs in her own family’s journey of discovering why it’s healthiest not to give their kids everything. Teaching them the difference between “want” and “need” is the first step in the right direction. With many practical tips and anecdotes, she shares how to say the ultimate yes as a family by bringing up faith-filled kids who will love God, serve others, and grow into hardworking, fulfilled, and successful adults.
It’s never too late to raise grateful kids. Get ready to cultivate a spirit of genuine appreciation and create a Jesus-centered home in which your kids don’t just say―but mean!―“thank you” for everything they have. I also loved Welch’s Rhinestone Jesus: Saying Yes to God When Sparkly, Safe Faith Is No Longer Enough. Both of these books are very encouraging for Christian mothers!
Memory-Making Mom: Building Traditions That Breathe Life Into Your Home by Jessica Smartt
What’s the solution to gaining the balanced, meaningful life you desire with your family? Create traditions that bring joy and significance. Popular “Smartter Each Day” blogger and mom of three, Jessica Smartt explains why memory-making is the puzzle piece that today’s families are longing for. In Memory-Making Mom she highlights the tradition-gifts kids need most with 300+ unique traditions including:
- Food: Memories That Stick to Your Ribs
- Holidays: Fall Bucket Lists, Crooked Christmas Trees, and Lingering Over Lent
- Spontaneity: Let’s Go on an Adventure
- Faith: Why You Need the Puzzle Box
She also offers practical encouragement to modern parents to keep on adventuring. Even when they are fighting distractions, are on a budget, and exhausted.
Every bitter thing is sweet: tasting the goodness of god in all things by sara hagerty
In the age of fingertip access to answers and a limitless supply of ambitions, where do we find the God who was birthed in dirt and straw? Sara Hagerty found him when life stopped working for her. She found him when she was a young adult mired in spiritual busyness and when she was a new bride with doubts about whether her fledgling marriage would survive. She found him alone in the night as she cradled her longing for babies who did not come. And she found him as she kissed the faces of children on another continent who had lived years without a mommy’s touch.
In Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet, Hagerty masterfully draws from the narrative of her life to craft a mosaic of a God who leans into broken stories. Here readers see a God who is present in every changing circumstance. Most significantly, they see a God who is present in every unchanging circumstance as well
Whatever lost expectations readers are facing—in family, career, singleness, or marriage—Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet will bring them closer to a God who longs for them to know him more. What does it look like to know God’s nearness when life breaks? What does it mean to receive his life when earthly life remains barren? How can God turn the bitterness of unmet desire into new flavors of joy?
With exquisite storytelling and reflection, Hagerty brings readers back to hope, back to healing, back to a place that God is holding for them alone. Back to a place where the unseen is more real than what the eye can perceive. A place where every bitter thing is sweet.
Hands Free Mama: A Guide to Putting Down the Phone, Burning the To-Do List, and Letting Go of Perfection to Grasp What Really Matters! by rachel macy stafford
If technology is the new addiction, then multitasking is the new marching order. We check our email while cooking dinner. We send a text while bathing the kids. And we spend more time looking into electronic screens than into the eyes of our loved ones. With our never-ending to-do lists and jam-packed schedules, it’s no wonder we’re distracted.
But this isn’t the way it has to be.
In Hands Free Mama, special education teacher, New York Times bestselling author, and mother Rachel Macy Stafford says enough is enough. Tired of losing track of what matters most in life, Rachel began practicing simple strategies that enabled her to momentarily let go of largely meaningless distractions and engage in meaningful soul-to-soul connections.
Finding balance doesn’t mean giving up all technology forever. And it doesn’t mean forgoing our jobs and responsibilities. What it does mean is seizing the little moments that life offers us to engage in real and meaningful interaction. In these pages, Rachel guides you through how to:
- Acknowledge the cost of your distraction
- Make purposeful connection with your family
- Give your kids the gift of your undivided attention
- Silence your inner critic
- Let go of the guilt from past mistakes
- And move forward with compassion and gratefulness
So join Rachel and go hands-free. Discover what happens when you choose to open your heart–and your hands–to the possibilities of each God-given moment.
the ministry of ordinary places waking up to God’s goodness around you by shannan martin
Popular blogger Shannan Martin offers Christians who are longing for a more meaningful life a simple starting point: learn what it is to love and be loved right where God has placed you.
For Christ-followers living in an increasingly complicated world, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed and unsure of how to live a life of intention and meaning. Where do we even begin?
In The Ministry of Ordinary Places, Martin offers a surprisingly simple answer: uncover the hidden corners of our cities and neighborhoods and invest deeply in the lives of people around us. She walks us through her own discoveries about the vital importance of paying attention. As well as the hard but rewarding truth about showing up and committing for the long haul, despite the inevitable encounters with brokenness and uncertainty. With transparency, humor, heart-tugging storytelling, and more than a little personal confession, Martin shows us that no matter where we live or how much we have, as we learn what it is to be with people as Jesus was, we’ll find our very lives. The details will look quiet and ordinary, and the call will both exhaust and exhilarate us. But it will be the most worth-it adventure we will ever take.
I’d love for you to comment below with your favorite encouraging books for Christian mothers in the comments below!
For more bookish resources…
- Best Books For Homeschooling Inspiration
- 20 Of The Best Books I Read in 2020
- Top Ten Books For Christian Moms
- Sally Clarkson’s Website
Read more about our family’s story at Meet Tanna From Megavan Mama!
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