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As a girl, I always preferred Barbie dolls to baby dolls. Barbie just had more fun. All grown up with snazzy outfits and painted-on eye shadow, she'd zip off in her pink corvette to meet friends at the mall or join Ken at a candlelit table for two. Babies, on the other hand, would wet their diapers (remember Betsy Wetsie?) and lie in cradles all day.

When my husband and I announced we were expecting a baby, our parents wept, our siblings screamed, and I was mystified. How could a baby elicit such dramatic displays of emotion? After all, it was just a baby. Since then, I've been surprised in this journey of motherhood. Surprised by joy. Surprised by myself. Surprised by God.

The tasks of being a mother lack the glamour of a high-powered job. But many women, like Carla Barnhill, have found fulfillment and even pleasure in the work. Barnhill writes that motherhood has left her "changed by the richest life experience of them all." Indeed, Michelle Grant Scott points out that motherhood is far more than doing laundry, packing school lunches, or changing dirty diapers. The responsibilities of "[assessing] a child's well-being through a cracked door" and "tiptoeing so hushed that only baby breath is audible" can create a sacred space for women to sense purpose and God's pleasure in their daily work.

The responsibilities of mothering can also create opportunities to learn. "When I entered this world of motherhood," writes Kim Neesen, "I was well aware I'd take on the job of raising this child for years to come. What I wasn't aware of was how much this child would teach me." In the process of childrearing, many women find that their children prod them toward developing patience, fortitude, endurance, and unconditional love. These lifelong lessons, says Dale Hanson Bourke, prove invaluable for cultivating good leaders. "Motherhood and leadership are not about the payoff. They are about investment in others, careful management of problems, giving up oneself to the point that self is not noticed."

Despite its great joys, motherhood can carry great strains and sorrows as well. In "Still Under the Bell Jar," Lauren Winner notes that many women feel ambivalent about entering the world of motherhood. "Some days I will admit that I am being a little melodramatic," she says, "but other days I'll tell you that I feel like I have a choice, My Work or Marriage, and on those days I feel sad." Women who choose children over career, opt for career over children, or try to balance both inevitably begin asking questions about their value as contributing members of society.

These questions, says Susan Wise Bauer, arise largely from the competing demands of women's personal desires, feminist expectations, and cultural norms. She writes, "Feminists … have spent all their time pushing for equal acceptance in work, while ignoring women's desire for children. Feminism has too often relegated motherhood to the status of patriarchal slavery. This may be good politics, but it isn't reality." For successful lawyer Lisa Long Kennedy, the choice to become a mother made her unpopular with her fellow lawyers, who encouraged her to consider what she was losing: "money and … personal identity." Kennedy writes, "To some of my colleagues, my decision to stay at home was a betrayal of the feminist cause. To the contrary, however, I feel strongly that feminism should expand rather than limit the opportunities available to women. A woman need not be imprisoned in the business world simply because she is competent to succeed there."

In fact, anyone who succeeds in the world of motherhood deserves respect, for mothering is a job that, many days, almost all mothers feel like quitting. "The idealized image of mother," writes Amy Boucher Pye, "seems to die rather quickly in the daily challenges of life." Women question their sense of purpose, struggle with difficult toddlers, and sorrow over wayward teenagers.

Because of motherhood's stresses, Carla Barnhill believes "stay-at-home motherhood truly is a mission, one into which not all of us are led." For those women who choose to embark on this mission, Sam and Bethany Torode offer some encouragement. "We have never heard a Christian parent say, 'You know, I really regret having that fifth child' or 'I wish I hadn't had any children at all.'"

However, motherhood is certainly not a path all women will follow or feel called by God to follow. "Motherhood is just one of the ways God shapes us," Carla Barnhill writes. "It isn't about how our kids turn out; it's about being open to God. … Honestly, our focus should be on living faithfully in everything we do: in our parenting, our marriage, our friendships, and our work." For many mothers, it can seem as if all they do is mothering. But although mothers' parenting tasks can define them, the true job of mothers—and all Christians—is to be faithful stewards of everything God has bestowed upon them.