"Jesus changes husbands into men who lead well and he changes wives into women who help divinely. Helping is not a role we're rescued from, along with our sin. It's a role we're redeemed to mature into."

Why are men and women given different instructions in passages like Titus 2? Let's think through the architecture which leads to the differences.

Since we're not disembodied beings, marriage and mothering don't happen in a vacuum. Perhaps the Apostle Paul's outdated instruction to be "busy at home" has more in mind than we suppose?

Good motherhood loves and pursues what God says is good, in the situation a mother and her children are in. It can happen even when situations are not good.

Desperation for happiness is driving most of what we do. And that's exactly as it should be.

When we take Jesus' gospel seriously, we can end up talking as if goodness is a bad thing. This leads to a whole lot of weirdness in our mothering.

Happiness and goodness belong together because they both come from God. Pursuing goodness is a far happier situation than avoiding it.

Jesus brings us into the very goodness and happiness we don't deserve. This changes how we approach motherhood.

Happiness sneaks up on us while we're getting on with what's good.

Jesus saves us out of parental passivity, into optimistic courage.