Author name: Roseline Moronkola

Who Was Deborah? Deborah was an extraordinary figure in biblical history, serving ancient Israel as a prophet, judge, military leader, songwriter, and minstrel. Residing in Ephraim, she judged and led Israel for 60 years in the 12th century B.C., which included 20 years of national hardship before the Canaanite war and a peaceful 40 years after. As a prophetess, Deborah received messages from God and shared them with the people. She was also a judge, settling disputes between Ramah and Bethel in the land of Ephraim. The Bible says she would sit under a palm tree, later known as Deborah’s Palm, for people to come to her with their issues. During Deborah’s time, the Israelites were oppressed by Jabin, the king of Canaan. Stirred by the wretched condition of Israel, Deborah sent a message to Barak, the son of Abinoam, and told him that the Lord God had commanded him to muster ten thousand troops of Naphtali and Zebulun and concentrate them upon Mount Tabor. She prophesied that God would draw Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, to the Kishon River, where Barak would defeat him. Barak was hesitant and said he would only go if Deborah went with him. Deborah agreed but prophesied that the honor of defeating Sisera would then belong to a woman. When Sisera heard about the rebellion, he gathered nine hundred chariots of iron and a host of people. Deborah then told Barak, “Go! This is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the Lord gone ahead of you?”. A battle ensued, led by Barak, and Sisera was completely defeated. Sisera fled on foot and sought refuge in the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. Jael welcomed Sisera, gave him milk, and covered him with a blanket. While he slept, Jael took a tent peg and hammered it through Sisera’s temple, killing him. After the battle, Deborah and Barak sang a song of victory and praise, recorded in Judges 5. The biblical account of Deborah concludes with the statement that after the battle, there was peace in the land for 40 years. Deborah’s leadership exemplified moral character, and she was greatly respected by the people. Modern women can glean wisdom from Deborah’s actions in several key areas: Lessons Modern Women Can Learn From Deborah For more biblical women’s studies, listen to the Women Extraordinaire Podcast: Treasure in Jars of Clay and Women Extraordinaire Podcast: The Potter and the Clay. You can also read more about Deborah’s story at Bible Study Tools.

Restarting your career after motherhood can feel like standing at the bottom of a staircase you climbed years ago. The world of work has changed, your children need you, and a quiet voice asks whether anyone will want to hire you after a break. That voice is wrong more often than it is right. The years you spent raising children built patience, planning, negotiation, and resilience. This article offers five steps for restarting your career after motherhood, and you can pair it with our page of prayer points for career breakthrough when you need courage. Why Restarting Your Career After Motherhood Feels So Hard Confidence is usually the first obstacle. After years at home, or years of part-time work around the children, it is easy to believe your skills have expired. Guilt is the second obstacle. Many mothers worry that returning to work means loving their children less. Neither belief is true. Work can be one way you provide for your family and use the gifts God gave you. Naming the fear is the first step to dealing with it. You are not behind. You are beginning a new chapter. 1. Take Stock of What You Bring Sit down with a pen and list everything you have done in the last few years: managing a household budget, organising school events, volunteering at church, running a small side business, caring for a family member, or learning something new. List paid and unpaid work. Then translate each item into skills an employer understands, such as budgeting, coordination, communication, leadership, and problem solving. This list becomes the raw material for your CV and for how you speak about yourself in interviews. 2. Decide What Kind of Work Fits This Season Not every mother wants the same thing. Some want full-time work, some want flexible hours, and some want to start a small business from home. Think about your children’s ages, your support at home, and what income your family really needs. Be honest and specific. Write down the hours you can work, the distance you can travel, and the minimum income you need. A clear picture prevents you from chasing roles that will only leave you exhausted. If you feel drawn to a new direction altogether, our reflection on why a woman may push for a new beginning may resonate. 3. Refresh Your Skills Choose one or two skills to update. That could be basic computer skills, a professional certificate, a short online course, or simply practising a tool your industry now uses every day. Small, focused learning is better than a long list you never finish. Many free and low-cost courses exist online, and you can study in the gaps of your day. Finishing something also rebuilds confidence, because it reminds you that you can still learn and grow. 4. Rebuild Your Network Most opportunities come through people. Message former colleagues, classmates, church friends, and neighbours, and tell them plainly what kind of work you are looking for. You do not need a long speech. A short message such as “I am returning to work in accounting and would value any leads” is enough. Ask for advice as well as jobs. People enjoy helping when the request is clear and small. Keep a simple list of everyone you contact and follow up kindly. 5. Look After Your Money and Your Worth When you restart, you should also protect your own financial footing. Talk with your spouse, if you are married, about how income, savings, and responsibilities will be shared. Our reflection on why a woman’s savings matter explains why this is not selfish. The woman described in Proverbs 31:16-18 considers a field and buys it, and sees that her trading is profitable. Diligence and good judgement in work have always been part of a godly woman’s life. Handling the Gap on Your CV Many mothers worry most about the gap in their work history. You do not need to hide it or apologise for it. State it plainly and briefly: “I took time to raise my children and I am now returning to work.” Then move straight to what you bring and what you have been doing to prepare. If you volunteered, took courses, ran a small business, or helped manage a household or an organisation, include it under its own heading. Employers respect honesty and readiness far more than a perfect timeline. When you are restarting your career after motherhood, the way you talk about your break matters as much as the break itself. Practise your short answer out loud until it feels natural. A calm, confident sentence at the start of an interview settles both you and the interviewer. Sort Out Childcare and Support Early A plan for the children makes everything else easier. Decide who will help, whether it is a spouse, a relative, a trusted neighbour, or paid care, and test the arrangement before you begin. Have a back-up for the days a child is sick or school closes unexpectedly. Speak with your family about what will change at home. Sharing tasks openly avoids a slow build-up of resentment. Restarting your career after motherhood works best when the household adjusts with you, instead of expecting you to do everything as before. Pray Over the Decision Bring the whole decision to God, including your fears about your children and your worth. Ask Him for wisdom about the kind of work, the timing, and the people to approach. Then take the next small step with peace. You are not choosing between faith and work. You are asking God to lead you in both. Give Yourself Grace and Time Restarting your career after motherhood rarely happens in a straight line. You may get rejections, you may take a role that is smaller than you hoped, and you will have days when childcare falls apart. None of that means you have failed. Celebrate small wins: the first message answered, the first interview, the first day back. And remember that you are

Nobody sees it on a schedule. Nobody thanks you for it. Yet many women carry a constant background hum of remembering, planning and anticipating that keeps a household running. It is often called the mental load, and it is one of the least visible forms of work in a home. If you have ever felt tired even on a day when you “did nothing,” this article is for you. The Whole Woman exists to give room to a woman’s identity beyond a single role, and part of that is being honest about what women quietly carry. This piece describes a common experience rather than a rule, because every home is different. Its aim is that the reader feels seen, and leaves with something practical to try. What the Mental Load Actually Is The mental load is not the physical tasks themselves. It is the thinking that surrounds them: noticing that the school form is due, remembering that the medicine is running out, knowing which child needs new shoes, planning what tomorrow’s meals will be, and keeping track of birthdays, contributions and appointments. It is the difference between doing a task and being the person who is responsible for remembering that the task exists. Because it happens inside the mind, it leaves no visible trace. A clean kitchen is easy to see. The three reminders that made it possible are not. Why the Mental Load Goes Unseen The mental load goes unseen for a simple reason: it looks like nothing. When planning works, everything simply happens, and the person who did the planning appears to have done very little. Many men who love their wives sincerely do not realise how much invisible work sits behind the ordinary running of the home, not from carelessness but because nobody ever showed it to them. It also gets normalised. Many women were taught, by example, that anticipating everyone’s needs is simply what a good woman does. Carrying it quietly can feel like part of one’s identity, which makes it harder to name and easier to resent silently. Where the Load Tends to Hide Seeing the list is the first relief. It shows that the tiredness is real and has a source. The Difference Between Helping and Owning Many couples get stuck on the word “help.” When one person is the default manager and the other “helps” when asked, the manager still carries the whole mental load, because she must remember what to ask for. Sharing the load means one person fully owns a task from start to finish, including noticing that it needs doing. For example, if one spouse owns school administration, they read the messages, note the deadlines and handle the forms without reminders. The other spouse does not need to supervise. That is what makes it lighter. Five Powerful Ways to Share the Mental Load None of this needs a perfect system. It needs both people willing to look at the list honestly. If You Are the One Carrying It Name it without blame. A calm sentence such as, “I am carrying a lot of the planning and I need us to share it,” opens more doors than a list of complaints. Give yourself permission to let some balls drop, and to accept a different way of doing things, because a task done imperfectly by someone else still moves weight off your shoulders. Protect some rest that is not a reward for finishing everything. Your worth is not measured by how much you anticipate. You are more than the family’s planner, as we explore in why a woman is more than wife and mother. And if money conversations are part of the load, her savings matter is worth reading. What to Avoid When Sharing the Load Sharing goes wrong in familiar ways. One is redoing a task because it was not done your way, which quietly teaches the other person to stop trying. Another is keeping score, where every act of effort becomes a debt to be counted. A third is treating the person who notices as the organiser forever, so that the mental load simply returns in a new outfit. Give each other room to learn. A task done a little differently is still a task done. Say thank you for the noticing, not only the doing, because noticing is where the load actually lives. When both people feel appreciated, the arrangement lasts far longer than any rota on the fridge. A Note for Husbands and Fathers Listen without defending yourself. Ask, “What are you carrying that I have not noticed?” and then take real ownership of something, including the remembering. Organisations such as UN Women highlight unpaid care and household work as an important part of the wider conversation about fairness, which reminds us this is not a small complaint. When the mental load is shared, the whole home feels calmer.

Sometimes a woman stops talking about small adjustments and begins to talk about a new beginning. It might be a move to another city, a change of work, a different pace of life or a completely different way of running the home. To the people around her it can seem sudden. To her, it has often been forming quietly for a long time. Understanding why she pushes for it can change a tense conversation into a shared decision, especially when she wants change and does not yet know how to explain it. This article is not about telling a woman what she should want. It is about giving room to her identity, her goals and her reasons, so that she feels seen and so that the people who love her can respond with empathy instead of defence. Why a Woman May Push for a New Beginning A desire for change is rarely a random whim. Most of the time it points to something real that has not been named yet. Here are some common reasons: What She May Be Trying to Say When She Wants Change The request for a new place or a new routine is often a doorway to a deeper message. Listen for these: Notice that none of these mean “I do not love you” or “I am ungrateful.” A woman who wants change is often trying to build, not to leave. If You Are the One Who Wants Change Wanting change is not a flaw. It becomes more effective when you can explain it clearly. Some steps may help: The Bible tells us that “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed” (Proverbs 15:22). Good counsel can make a hopeful idea wiser and more realistic. If Someone You Love Wants Change If a wife, sister, mother or friend is pushing for a new beginning, your first response matters. These responses tend to help: Sitting Down to Decide Together Some changes are possible and some are not right now. A helpful way to decide is to move through these steps together: Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is “not yet,” and sometimes the deeper need can be met without moving at all. In every case, a woman who is heard is far more likely to trust the decision, even when it is not the one she first wanted. It also helps to remember that wanting change is not the same as wanting to run away. Many women hold on to a hope for years before they say it aloud, often because they fear being misunderstood. Creating a calm space where she can speak early, before frustration builds, protects both the relationship and the plan. Even a simple weekly check-in can make that possible. A Final Word When she wants change, she is often saying something important about her identity, her strength and her hopes. She deserves to be heard as a whole person, not only as a wife, mother or daughter. If you would like to explore that idea further, read why a woman is more than wife and mother and our reflection on why her savings matter. For broader global perspectives on women’s opportunities and rights, visit UN Women.

Her savings matter beyond the number in the account. Here are 4 honest reasons a woman’s money deserves the same respect as anyone else’s.

Understand the family’s money is advice many women hear only after something has already gone wrong — a spouse’s job loss, an unexpected debt, or a season where decisions were made without them. By then, catching up feels twice as hard as it should have been. Why So Many Women Are Kept at a Distance From Money It is rarely intentional. In many homes, one spouse naturally becomes the one who “handles” the finances — pays the bills, tracks the accounts, makes the calls — and the other spouse settles into trusting that it’s being handled. Over time, trust quietly turns into distance. One person understands the full financial picture; the other understands only pieces of it. This arrangement can work for years without any visible problem — until it doesn’t. A sudden illness, a business downturn, or the loss of a spouse can leave the other partner needing to understand the family’s money at the exact moment there is no time left to learn slowly. Widows and separated women describe this same story again and again: not knowing which accounts existed, not knowing what was owed, not knowing where a single important document was kept. There is often a quieter reason too. Some women were raised to see money as “his side” of the marriage — a subject that belongs to the husband’s responsibility, not a shared language both partners are expected to speak. That inherited belief can survive for decades inside an otherwise equal marriage, simply because no one ever challenged it out loud. What It Actually Means to Understand the Family’s Money This isn’t about taking over the finances or distrusting a spouse who manages money well. It’s about both partners being able to answer basic questions: What do we earn? What do we owe? Where are our accounts, documents, and passwords? What would need to happen if one of us couldn’t manage things tomorrow? A woman who can answer these questions isn’t undermining her marriage — she is protecting it. Financial literacy research consistently shows that couples where both partners understand the household finances make better joint decisions and recover faster from financial shocks. Understanding isn’t the same as controlling. A woman can fully understand the family’s money and still choose, by mutual agreement, to let her spouse handle the day-to-day payments. The difference is that the choice is informed, not accidental. What Gets Missed When Only One Person Knows When only one spouse understands the money, more than finances are at risk. Decisions that affect the whole family — a large purchase, a new loan, a risky business investment — can be made without the full weight of a second, informed perspective. Disagreements about money often aren’t really about the money itself; they are about one partner feeling shut out of decisions that affect their life just as much as anyone else’s. There is also a practical emergency dimension that rarely gets discussed until it’s urgent. If a spouse is hospitalized, traveling, or otherwise unreachable, the other partner may need to access an account, pay a bill, or make a financial decision within hours — not after a lengthy search through drawers and old emails. A Realistic Starting Point Understanding the family’s money doesn’t require becoming an accountant overnight. It can start with one honest conversation: a shared look at the bank statements, a shared list of debts and assets, a shared plan for what happens if either partner is suddenly unavailable. From there, a simple shared document — even a single page — listing account names, institutions, and where to find key documents can remove most of the panic a real emergency would otherwise cause. Small, regular check-ins matter more than one dramatic financial summit. A fifteen-minute conversation once a month, covering what changed and what’s coming up, keeps both partners informed without turning money into a source of tension. A woman who understands the family’s money isn’t stepping outside her role. She is stepping fully into a partnership — one where both people can speak, decide, and plan from the same page, not from separate rooms. Related Reading See also When Everyone Needs You and The Woman Behind the Mother.

The woman behind the mother does not disappear, but she needs deliberate room to stay visible — to herself and to her family.