Skip to Main Content
Women of the ELCA
  • Donate
  • Shop
  • Tools For Leaders
  • Publications
  • Daily Grace
  • Contact
  • Ministry & Action
    • Discipleship
    • Justice
      • Human Trafficking
      • Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
      • Racial Justice Advocacy
      • Racial Justice Advocacy Network resources
      • Domestic Violence
    • Membership
    • Stewardship
      • Thankofferings
      • Faithful Friends
      • Katie’s Fund
      • Gift Planning
    • Special Initiatives
      • Rachel’s Day
      • Raising Up Healthy Women & Girls
    • Scholarships
      • Lutheran laywomen
      • Lutheran Ordained Ministry
  • Resources
  • About
    • History
    • Executive Board
    • Staff
    • Get Involved
  • Events
  • Belong
  • Donate
  • Shop
  • Tools For Leaders
  • Publications
  • Daily Grace
  • Contact
« Back to All Daily Grace

Draw strength from the community

9.22.2021
|
Daily Grace

The Bible doesn’t spend a lot of time on ordinary female relationships among generations and families. We don’t hear of grandmothers holding new babies and helping new mothers learn to nurse. We don’t read about mothers helping their daughters through postpartum recovery. We don’t see a middle-aged woman learning the ways of menopause from someone who has been through it.

When I think about generations of women coming together in parenting, my first thought is of two women, one much older than the other, both expecting children who would change the world: Mary and Elizabeth.

When I had a baby in July 2019, I couldn’t have known that the very next year, a global pandemic would remove my access to the majority of my village. As a new mom, even as I have struggled and felt alone, there have also been opportunities to connect in unexpected ways, with unexpected people: those with and without children, those young and inexperienced, those older and more experienced, the lonely, the depressed, those related by blood and those who are not.

Like our biblical ancestors, I hope we will learn to bookend each other, to draw strength from the well of our community.

This message is an excerpt from “Family matters: It takes a village” by Cara Strickland in the May 2021 issue of Gather magazine.


Daily Grace has been offering you things to ponder and things to pray about for more than 10 years. For free. Women of the ELCA provides many other free online resources, too—see welca.org/resources. Please support Women of the ELCA at welca.org/give.

Share this post

Sign up for Daily Grace

Daily Grace is an on-the-go companion for your journey, offering a faith reflection every day. Encounter God’s extravagant, boundless and often surprising grace by signing up for a daily email message.

Back to home

8765 W. Higgins Rd.

Chicago IL 60631

800-638-3522

[email protected]

Stay In Touch

Sign up for the WELCA Newsletter

Explore WELCA
  • Ministry & Action
  • Daily Grace
  • Resource Library
  • Events
  • Blog
  • News
  • About WELCA
  • Tools For Leaders
  • Publications
  • Donate
  • Shop
  • Photos
Explore Publications

Bold Cafe

A Lutheran perspective for women of Christian faith or any woman who is interested in how faith relates to the issues facing women today.

Gather Magazine

A mix of articles, theological reflections, devotions and stories of comfort and challenge that help readers grow in faith.

Cafe Podcast

Subscribe to our podcast:

Click to subscribe

© Copyright 2025 Women of the ELCA. All Rights Reserved.
  • Privacy Policy
  • Sitemap
  • Contact
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube
© Copyright 2025 Women of the ELCA. All Rights Reserved.