A friend recently told me a story of someone she knows who went into the ministry recently, directing a hopping children’s program at a local church. Lots of responsibility, long hours and, it appears, lots of impact. The trouble she pointed out is that this woman’s husband has been left in need and her own children signed in to daycare or daddy daycare.

It occurred to me how ironic it was that my friend who herself left a rising career herself to be with and have more children is thought of as the one lacking impact, whereas the lady who has virtually abandoned her husband and children, at least in the hours of need, is out there “making a difference.” This is not to say that a mother’s place is in the home, but when her priority is there, when she ministers to those who desperately need her, the impact is enormous.

The butterfly effect is when an unknowing Monarch flaps his wings in remote African Rain forest and sets off a series of events that becomes a hurricane on the Gulf Coast. God constantly orchestrates the world this way, doing great things through what seems disconnected and unimportant. Motherhood appears to us as common and inconsequential when it is in fact the most important job in the world. Children of sacrificial and wise mothers will have their own impacts through hundreds of collective years, thousands of relationships, and the countless other generations that come from them. Children of wise and sacrificial mothers rise up and call them blessed.