Lisa Barry: The other day, I was reading an old excerpt from a journal when my children were younger. The morning had gone like this: While eating breakfast, my then two-year-old was coloring with crayon on the white kitchen wall; the five-year-old had just finished using twelve feet of Scotch tape and the baby spit up on her third outfit; and it wasn't even 9:00 o'clock yet. And although I've never liked the idea of daycare, it sounded much more appealing that morning.

Do you ever wonder if you're not cut out to be a stay-at-home mother? Are some women just more gifted than others are in domestics, and the rest of us should head for corporate life? Today on Gateway To Joy, Elisabeth Elliot discusses this issue with her special guest, Gayle Sommers. Stay with us for Gateway To Joy coming up next.

Elisabeth Elliot: You are loved with an everlasting love. That's what the Bible says. And underneath are the everlasting arms. This is your friend EE talking today with my guest, Gayle Sommers. She was telling us in our last talk how an ordinary day goes in her home. She is the mother of three young children. How does an ordinary day really look in your house?

Gayle Sommers: I was saying before that I am not someone who finds mothering to come naturally. It has been a difficult thing for me from the time that I held my first child in my arms in the hospital.

Elisabeth Elliot: You were how old?

Gayle Sommers: When I was how old? 32. I had my first child at age 32 and now I'm 40. I have not found it an easy road at all, and the reason that I have probably given more thought than most to the idea of working mothers is because I have questioned myself from time to time--is there anything else I could be doing? Do I really need to be here with these children? Do they really need me? Do they need ME--the type of person that I am? I am not the type of person who can suffer little children gladly.

Elisabeth Elliot: You don't go "coo" over everybody else's children?

Gayle Sommers: No, I don't.

Elisabeth Elliot: And you're not the sort of person who runs up to children in playgrounds.

Gayle Sommers: No, I am not.

Elisabeth Elliot: ...and says, "Come here, Honey, sweetheart, you darling little thing?"

Gayle Sommers: No. I am not that...

Elisabeth Elliot: Not one of those.

Gayle Sommers: ...sort of person at all. I have spent many hours wishing that I was, but I am not. I find the interruptions--you're asking me now about my ordinary day--

Elisabeth Elliot: What time do you get up?

Gayle Sommers: Six. Usually 6 o'clock the day starts.

Elisabeth Elliot: Does everyone get up at 6?

Gayle Sommers: No. The first child usually wakes about six. That's the youngest, Leah, wakes up at six, and the others follow suit. And then the day begins and we more or less stumble through the day and then it ends. As far as the children are concerned, the last child is in bed by 8. My ordinary day--I've thought a lot about this--what is my ordinary day like? It's filled with interruptions, it's filled with complications, and it's filled with questions that I don't want to be asked. It seems like there's just a "hum" that goes on in our home from the time the children wake up until the time they go to sleep and I feel as if I almost never have a moment to myself--never can follow a thought through to its conclusion.

I am always more or less at the beck and call of the children. I don't want to paint the day as being dark. There are lots of laughs. There are lots of wonderful times but, at the end of the day, I have to say that I am very glad to see them tucked in and that those two hours of quiet are what I look forward to. So that for me each day, really, it would be less than honest of me to sit here and represent myself as being someone who finds motherhood a joyous, and exciting, and wonderful thing. Fulfilling? Yes, yes. I find it fulfilling in the sense that I know that I'm doing the right thing.

Elisabeth Elliot: That's what makes something fulfilling, isn't it?

Gayle Sommers: Yes, right.

Elisabeth Elliot: It's not what you do. It's the knowledge that you can do it for God, and that this is what God has called you to do. God gave you those children, so you are called to be a mother.

Gayle Sommers: Right. And for me, I have to say, too--now that you know a little bit about my family background--when I look at my children and myself and what goes on between us and when I see my shortcomings and my limitations, and I know very much that, a lot of it has to do with what I experienced as a child, and my family life. At those points, I have--instead of feeling overwhelming frustration, and instead of wanting to fly from the situation, which I think I really understand that temptation for women--because I stood there myself. But instead of wanting to fly away and find a job and just put those kids in day care and forget about it and let somebody else who has gifts better than I do the job--instead, those moments for me are times when I am so overwhelmed with thanksgiving that God broke into the chain of my life and redeemed me and has indicated a better way, and that I can start to do that with my children, that I don't have to repeat what happened with me and my family. I can see the mistakes that my parents made. And they saw them, too. When they became Christians they saw, and they wept. My father himself spent hours weeping over what he had done to us as children, not abuse. I'm not talking about physical abuse.

Elisabeth Elliot: What he had done, and undoubtedly what he had failed to do, too.

Gayle Sommers: Yes. What he failed to do and what he missed with us. And I know the type of person that I might have become had I not become a Christian, and what I would be doing with my children. The only thing that I am familiar with is what my parents had done. But those moments, on the one hand, I feel tremendous weakness and frustration, because I think, "If only I were a different person, I would be doing this much better." But, on the other hand, I know that God has broken into what would have been an awful story, a terrible story, and that He will help me to do better with my kids.

Elisabeth Elliot: Absolutely. And isn't it just a terrific illustration. Let me say this to the listeners out there. Isn't it wonderful to hear a woman who acknowledges her helplessness? She was not cut out to be a mother. How many times I have heard people say, "Well, you know, I am just one of those women who really needs to be away from her children. I was not cut out to be a mother. It's fine for the ones who love it, like your daughter, Valerie. She must have been cut out to be a mother, but I just wasn't cut out to be a mother." So, I'm so glad to hear your testimony from that standpoint. And also it reminds me of what Paul says in I Corinthians, that God has chosen the weak things. God has chosen the things which are not--and out of weakness, God gives us His strength. "My strength is made perfect in your weakness." And the more helpless we feel, the more totally we become receptacles of His grace. Isn't that true?

Gayle Sommers: Exactly.

Elisabeth Elliot: And the more we are forced to His feet, in saying, "Lord, help me. . ."

Gayle Sommers: Exactly. I couldn't agree more. And the thing that I have thought about often in this question--I have heard the same thing. I have heard this same thing when women say, "I'm just not cut out for this. This is driving me crazy." And this is the key line here. I have heard women say, "I am a better mother when I go out and work for eight hours."

Elisabeth Elliot: Oh, I've heard that. I've heard that.

Gayle Sommers: All right, let's talk about this right now, because it's on my mind, and I would like to address this. Women say, "I am a better mother when I go away for eight hours, when I have a job, when I feel like I am an adult, when I can carry on a conversation, I can use my gifts that I have. I'm a much better mother. I'm calm when I come home," and so it goes. I want to say this about that. What I suspect, what I very strongly suspect, is that what the woman is saying there is that she's not a better mother.

First of all, anybody should be able to see that you are not a better mother if you are out of the home eight hours a day. You're not really being a mother if you're out of the home eight hours a day; you are not a better mother. But what you are testifying to is that you feel better. You feel better about yourself. But ask the children if you are a better mother. What would the children say? Would the children say, "Yes, you are a better mother because you're gone eight hours a day? I don't see you eight hours a day?"

To me, first of all, that just doesn't make sense. It doesn't add up. And secondly, it's looking at the thing from the wrong point of view. If you want to look at yourself and say, "Does this feel good for me"? Well, there would be a lot of other things that would be a lot better than listening to little children fuss and complain, breaking up fights, having to discipline them, the chaos, the confusion--the way it is in my household. Sure, I would feel better.

Elisabeth Elliot: Where do people get this idea that we ought to feel good about ourselves all of the time?

Gayle Sommers: Well, it's a strange and unhappy notion, I'm afraid, that has just sunk in. And I'm convinced that it has sunk in at the deepest levels of wherever the common psyche finds its strength. I can rarely find a person now who doesn't think that feeling good about yourself is a very...

Elisabeth Elliot: It's a be-all and the end-all, isn't it?

Gayle Sommers: ...important thing. It's sort of like an inalienable right that might be written into the constitution--that I should feel good about myself. And I don't buy it, I don't buy it. I don't see it in the Scripture. I don't see it in the Scripture that you need to feel good about yourself. I don't buy the idea that you have to love yourself before you can love others.

This is what I often hear Christian mothers saying in a sort of diluted form that I have to feel good about myself, or I have to love who I am. I have to remain intact before I have anything to give the children. And that's looking at it from entirely the wrong point of view, I think. It's looking at it from the mother's point of view, but it is not looking at it from the tiny child's point of view: "My mother is walking out of the door at 7:00 in the morning. My mother is gone all day. My mother is walking in at 6:00. My mother is a better mother?"

Elisabeth Elliot: "Who is my mother?"

Gayle Sommers: Who is my mother?

Elisabeth Elliot: The child spends most of its waking hours with somebody else.

Gayle Sommers: Yes, children don't know. It's been my experience that my children don't know that I'm bored. My children don't know that I'm frustrated. My children don't know that I don't feel good about myself. My children know I am there. That Mommy is there. My mother is there. My Mommy is there. They can call me whenever they need me. My children know that I'm there. But they don't know that I feel like a wreck, that I feel confused, that I feel like I'm in the middle of chaos, that I'm grinding my teeth. They don't know it.

Elisabeth Elliot: But there are some mothers who would say, "But I need to let my children know how I feel."

Gayle Sommers: Heaven forbid that my children should know how I feel. No. No, I don't think that children need to know that you are bored and that you are frustrated. I get bored. There is so much that is repetitive about raising young children. I get bored.

Elisabeth Elliot: Does it make a difference though when you think of the fact that you can actually offer up the laundry and the cooking and the dish washing, and wiping the little noses...

Gayle Sommers: Yes. Yes. Right.

Elisabeth Elliot: ...as an offering to Christ?

Gayle Sommers: Right. It makes all the difference, it makes the difference, because I look at my three children: different personalities, and in their little embryonic form, they look to me like they'll be three fine people. And I realize that what I have at my fingertips is the ability to influence three children for good, to raise them.

Elisabeth Elliot: To shape their destiny.

Gayle Sommers: Exactly. To raise them, to nurture them. This idea of nurturing, I think, is one that has really gotten lost. People think that raising children requires just being there. And it's more than that. It is nurturing them, influencing them, teaching them--teaching them a sense of humor, sharing things, being there with them at the right moment--it's nurturing, and nurturing cannot be done in a day care center. Childcare can be done...

Elisabeth Elliot: But not nurturing.

Gayle Sommers: ...taking care of children, but not nurturing.

Elisabeth Elliot: Well, thank you so much, Gayle. Remember that every experience, if offered to Jesus, can be your gateway to joy.

Lisa Barry: If you've been going through some frustrating times lately as a parent, I hope today's talk reminded you of the important job you're doing. I have heard so many testimonials of people saying that at the end of their lives their one great regret was that they didn't spend more time with their children, and I hope those words never come out of my mouth. It's for this very reason that we've put together our Mother's Day Packet. We started with the book Mountain Breezes, which is a large collection of Amy Carmichael's poetry that's for you spiritual/emotional side. Then we've included this two-week tape series Called to Be Mothers that's for your maternal side. Next, we added four greeting cards from Elisabeth's own line that's for your outreach side. Toss in a Bible Study Journal and a few leaflets, and you've got a wonderful packet just for women. The cost is $30.00 and you can send that along with a note to:

Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Or toll-free, that number is 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. On the web you'll find us at gatewaytojoy.org. Today's program has been a production of Back to the Bible. Be listening again tomorrow when Elisabeth and Gayle talk about the "want-to's" and the "have-to's" right here on Gateway To Joy.