Builders & Tenders: Finding Meaning In The Unseen Acts Of Motherhood

Photo by Jonathan Borba from Pexels

I live in a very old house. The main structure of our home was built in the 1790s, the same decade the land on which it sits officially became the state of Kentucky. My great-grandparents purchased the house in the 1950s, and I’m a third-generation owner. It’s a special thing to continue this family legacy; to wake up on such a rich piece of history every day.

Sometimes, I run my hand across the stone along the front of our home and wonder what sacrifice, sweat, teamwork, and sheer determination must have been required to get those stones from wherever they were part of the earth, to here. All for one man to provide a home — a place to belong — for his wife and several children. 

Those builders couldn’t have known that over two centuries later, I’d be sitting on the front porch of the home they pieced together, typing these words. I doubt they thought about ways to ensure the structure they were constructing would still be standing 200 years later. And yet, here we are.

Along one side of our house is a gorgeous rose bush for which I can take absolutely no credit. My great-grandmother planted it at some point during her residency here. And each spring, when the bright pink blooms burst open, I picture her, knees in the dirt, hands working carefully to avoid the thorns, pruning and tending.

“We have the builders and tenders to thank. Those with dirty knees and calloused hands; the ones who lived simple, mostly unseen lives marked by faithfulness.”

There’s no way she imagined that her great-granddaughter would one day find joy in those flowers, that her great-great-grandsons would stoop to smell them every time they ran by. And yet, here we are.

We often talk about those who came before us, honoring the trailblazers and the difference-makers whose names we see on monuments and in history books — as we should. But they weren’t the only ones whose lives left behind the evidence of days well-spent; little treasures which those of us who now take up a similar space get to uncover and enjoy. 

For that, we have the builders and tenders to thank. Those with dirty knees and calloused hands; the ones who lived simple, mostly unseen lives marked by faithfulness.

Their quiet, unnoticed work provides us with shelter and delight. The fruit of their labor gives us refuge and inspiration. The sense of place they created with their hands and their willingness to patiently cultivate beauty, little by little, builds in us a sense of belonging, even long after they’re around to bear witness. And as a mom, that’s just about the most encouraging news there is.

We, after all, are also builders and tenders. We build big things, like families and communities, and little things, like Lego towers and Valentine’s Day boxes and family meals. We tend to sick babies and piles of laundry and school lunches. And so much of it can feel repetitive and unseen, as though our lives are made up of a series of menial tasks. 

And yet, we know we do not labor in vain. Our building and tending matter. Not because we’re particularly great at it. But because in our work, we partner with the One who is at work in and among us; a Father who has the vision to see what we can’t and the power to turn our tiny, repetitive, humble acts of motherhood into fruit to be enjoyed for generations.

“Our building and tending matter. Not because we’re particularly great at it. But because in our work, we partner with the One who is at work in and among us.”

In our building and tending, we reflect the work that’s being done in us, cultivating things of Christ, pruning out the pieces of us that keep us from being like Him. And we can trust that in all of this, we will impact both the little ones who ask us for bedtime kisses and fill our homes with giggles, and those yet to be imagined.

After all, trail-blazing is great. But if the trails aren’t cared for and built upon and quietly tended, they become overgrown relics of the past. So, let us not grow weary of doing the good, unnoticed work of mothering. Let us find joy in building living room forts, kids with character, and everything in between. And let us find meaning in quietly tending to the places and people set before us, confidence not in our own efforts but in the One who will use our work for his good. 

“Let us not grow weary of doing the good, unnoticed work of mothering.”

Because maybe, decades — even centuries — from now, there will be a woman who looks upon the things you’ve built with gladness. She’ll see the things you so closely tended and delight in the fruit of your labor. She’ll think that you couldn’t possibly have considered her in your work. And yet, there she’ll be. To God be the glory!