Without some children in the spirit, it could be so easy for the sisters to fall away. No matter how young you are, one or two children in the spirit will be your protection and your support in many ways. Caring for these children will bring about a big change in you. A young lady who has no children would be too free. She would have no bondage and no limitation, but also no protection and no support. Two children would be a protection, a guard, and a limitation to the mother, but they would also keep her from being defeated. Without children, it is so easy for the sisters to make mistakes, but if there are two or three children there all the time, the children keep the mothers from making mistakes.
There is need for all the sisters to be sisters in reality. Our sister Phoebe in Romans 16:1 was a real sister. She was serving, she was caring for others as a nurse, she was a patroness taking care of all the needs of others. But to be such a sister in the church life is still not up to the top. In the church we need to have mothers. Even the servants of the Lord need to have mothers. The Apostle Paul needed a mother. The mother of Rufus was his mother. Without a sister as a mother to take care of them, all those who bear the burden for the Lord’s service would be sorrowful.
Many sisters need to become the real mothers in the church life. The best way to deal with the ladies who are so talkative is to give them twelve children. The more children they have, the more they don’t like to talk and they have to be practical. They realize talk is too much theory. Their talk becomes a plea for help. They have just finished nine and still have three little ones to bathe. They have no mind, no energy, no strength, no heart, no capacity, and no time to talk about who is getting married. The children will change the whole situation.
If you really love the Lord, you need to look at the church family, with a number of teen-agers who need spiritual mothers to care for them. You each need to pick up the burden to care for at least one as your child in the spirit. All the parents will tell you that they need your help.
If we call one another brothers and sisters in the church life, and yet when we come to the practical things, we don’t care for each other’s children, all of the second generation would realize that our brotherhood and sisterhood is not genuine. To them the brotherhood in the church life becomes something in the air. But if someone would pick up those young ones and care for them as their own child, the brotherhood in the church life becomes the real brotherhood. Both parties will get the benefit. This was Paul’s concept in writing Romans 16. Otherwise, how could he write in this way, "I commend to you our sister Phoebe. Greet Rufus,...his mother and mine"? This means that all the people in that time in the church life had the life transfer through the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. The cross is here. On this side of the cross Mary was Mary, and John was John. These two in blood and flesh had nothing to do with one another. But on the resurrection side, John becomes Mary’s son, and Mary becomes John’s mother. They have a second relationship of the family, not the first. The first relationship is in the flesh, but the second is in the transferred life. This matter is in the Bible, but it has been missed by most of today’s Christians.
In the New Testament it is really hard to trace the flesh family of the apostles. But it is so easy to see that among the early believers there was the second birth with the second family relationship. Among today’s Christians there is talk about the second birth, but there is nearly no talk about the second relationship. If we have the second birth, surely we have the second relationship, surely we have the second family. If we have the second family, surely there should be the family relationship. It is not enough to say that we are in a big family. We must have the family relationship with the real sisters and the real mothers.
To take care of others is not an easy thing, and it is even harder to be taken care of by others after we are grown. Nevertheless, we all need the care of others. Their care is our real nourishment, our real protection. The older sisters should not consider that they are no longer the daughters because they have become mothers. They need to learn to be daughters also and let others take care of them.
(Loving Mothers in the Church Life, Chapter 1, by Witness Lee)