The Highest Calling: A Letter from our Publisher
As you celebrated Mother’s Day yesterday, we hope you were able to remember and celebrate the mother, grandmother, or the mother figure in your life. The woman who came next to you and encouraged you, taught you, and loved you.
Mothers often go unappreciated for the hard, dedicated work that they do. Their days are often filled with laundry, cooking, cleaning up after everyone else, working, helping with school, and driving children to activities. But a mother’s days are also filled with snuggles from their children, kisses, “I love yous,” big bear hugs, every one of their child’s firsts, holding small hands, and so much more. That’s why it is so important to set aside a day to honor mothers and to say thank you for the hard work and dedication.
In The High Calling of Motherhood, author Chimene Shipley Dupler explains that the role of motherhood is a high calling from God. It is an opportunity you are blessed with to help mold the next generation and show them the love of Christ. In the excerpts below, Chimene explains that in today’s generation, we have devalued motherhood and fail to see it as the gift that it is. We have failed to see that one of the greatest callings of a mother is to teach their child about Jesus.
“We have lost the meaning and purpose of motherhood and the responsibility that comes with the high calling and gift that it is. We have forsaken it as a spiritual matter and used it as another stroke for our own ego and advancement. Motherhood has been orphaned and disdained by our culture. Instead, we rejoice in our self-entitlement and celebrate freedom from responsibility. We don’t want to be inconvenienced or burdened. And we definitely don’t want to have to work harder than necessary. This have-it-all culture of self-entitlement and convenience is the antithesis of motherhood. Yet, if we truly intend to raise up a generation of world changers, the calling of motherhood must be resurrected with a call to action by our society.
“Motherhood is messy and hard. But it is also a gift. We are leaving a legacy. We are impacting the culture and the future. We are leaving our mark and handprint on society. To do so, we must be intentional and purposeful. That begins with understanding our own individual purpose as mothers. Motherhood is, indeed, a calling- a high calling.
“As parents, we have been blessed with the responsibility to teach our children about Jesus, and we need to be fully ready ourselves in order to be up to the challenge. We need to step up our game. It is not a Christian school’s job. It is not the church’s job. God has given the family, the mother and father, the authority and the responsibility.
“Our job as moms is to point our children to Jesus, giving them a firm foundation with a biblical worldview. But when we remember that this is a spiritual battle we are facing, we realize that we are not alone in this fight. I have learned not to take things personally. I have to remember that my fight and my struggle reaching my child’s heart is described in Ephesians 6:12, ‘For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.’ We are in a spiritual battle as parents.
“Our mission as mothers is to reach our children’s hearts for Jesus. Our impact has an eternal significance. You have the potential to directly impact and influence lives. You are holding potential. Don’t discard what God has given you, thinking that the role of motherhood is an insignificant or unworthy career. Don’t bury your talent. God has called you and equipped you. We were made to thrive, not just survive, in our roles as wife and mother. Let’s be mothers who will change the trajectory and go to battle by raising up a godly generation.
“Moms, you are chosen. You are leaving your mark on history. You are making a difference. You are personally impacting the next generation. Motherhood is the highest of callings. While culture and society has abandoned and orphaned the high calling of motherhood, God has never orphaned or abandoned the high calling of motherhood.”
This past Mother’s Day and every day beyond, may every mother be able to join Chimene and say, “I am a difference-maker. I am a world changer. I am a mom.”
We hope you had a Happy Mother’s Day!
To learn more about Chimene and The High Calling of Motherhood, visit HERE.
I can hear Clemson football games from my house. My husband and I both attended Clemson University and have lived in the area for the past 20 years. Yes, we’re virtually held hostage at home on game days, but hearing the roar of the crowd and Tiger Band from our yard is so much fun! Go Tigers!
and the texture or taste of cheese unless it’s on a pizza. Cheese truly grosses me out and I don’t see what the appeal is at all.
I ran a half marathon in 2016. I started jogging in my early twenties in my spare time. However, it was not until I turned 30 that I finally did an official race, a half marathon in Richmond, Virginia. That was 13.1 miles, which took me a little over 2 hours. Since then, I have done several smaller races, including multiple 10k’s and 8k’s, and one 5k. Last November, I ran in the VCU Health 8k, averaging 7 minutes, 12 seconds a mile.
I grew up in Charleston, WV. Charleston is a sprawling city, and I lived in one of the more rural areas along Davis Creek. While I attended and eventually graduated from a Christian school in Cross Lanes, WV, I did attend public school during my junior year at George Washington High, the same school Jennifer Garner, the actress, graduated from. But since she graduated the year before I was there, I never got to meet her. Oh well.
I love baseball. I grew up watching the Atlanta Braves games broadcast on TBS in the 80’s, and my favorite player was the center fielder, Dale Murphy. I used to play mock baseball games by myself in my mom’s front yard, knocking the ball around and running bases I’d marked out in the grass. During my punk phase, I lost track of it all, but after moving to New Hampshire, I started paying attention to the Boston Red Sox in 2003 when they missed the World Series by one bad pitch (heartbreaking loss!) and went on the next year to win it all, breaking an 86 year “curse.” I’m an avid Sox fan now, and I still keep an eye on the Braves, enjoying when they do well.
Throughout my childhood I wanted to be an astronaut. When I was about 3 or 4, my father took me to the theater to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Perched on his shoulder I was swept into my first movie theater experience. From that time forward I watched anything space related. I read Disney’s The Black Hole in second grade. That led to more books about space. When the Challenger exploded, in 1986 I wrote NASA inquiring about o-rings and asked for a space shuttle schematic. I didn’t receive a schematic, but they sent me a detailed diagram (and apparently they wondered how a 12 year old knew about the o-rings). I learned and studied the universe . . . until that fateful day I learned I was terrified of flying and petrified of the cold vacuum of space.