Moms at the Well, Tara Edelschick and Kathy Tuan-Maclean. IVP Bible Studies (ISBN: 781514006788), 2024.

Summary: A seven week Bible study experience addressing the struggles moms face in parenting, looking at women in scripture and how God encountered them.

Being a mom isn’t easy. Sometimes it is working hard and feeling unappreciated. It’s worry over every sniffle and fever, over every time the kids are out of sight. It’s all the ways moms evade or numb the pain of inadequacy and failure. It’s comparisons with other moms. It’s the anger that wells up and explodes over the children. It’s the struggle with control and the gnawing sense that at the end of the day, whatever control one has is illusory and the attempts to make it work are counterproductive. It’s heartbreak.

Before developing these studies, Tara Edelschick and Kathy Tuan-Maclean surveyed over 700 moms from those in their 20’s to those in their 60’s. And the struggles named above were the ones that surfaced over and over in their survey results. Then they looked at women in scripture who faced these issues.

• Hagar with feeling unseen.
• Jairus (and his daughter Talitha) and the woman with the flow of blood, and worry.
• The Samaritan woman and running from pain.
• Leah and Rachel, and comparison
• Herodias and anger (I don’t ever think I’ve taken a close look at Herodias before!).
• Mary, the mother of Jesus, and control.
• Hagar (again) and hearbreak.

The guide they wrote is designed to be a seven week of shared study and discussion, five personal studies, and a family sabbath exercise. The flow of each study includes:

• A group check-in.
• A short introductory reading
• A video accessed through a QR code in the study, in which Kathy and Tara discuss their passage and their own experiences with the particular struggle (about ten minutes).
• A study of the relevant passage with room in the guide for notes.
• A “Holy Spirit Check-in” with a prompt for quiet reflection.
• A “breath prayer” connected to the theme that can be used through the week.
• A leader benediction.

Each of the daily personal studies return to the passage going deeper with one particular aspect.

Tara and Kathy don’t come off as the “together moms” but are real about the ways these struggles were their struggles, sharing real stories from their lives, like the poem Kathy’s daughter wrote about Kathy’s anger shared with the whole third grade class or Tara being described by her children as having “dictator syndrome.” They keep it real, naming the ways struggles manifest, ask insightful questions, and pointing to hope in scripture and prayer.

The book is printed on quality paper with great typography and artistic photographs at the beginning of each chapter. There is plenty of room to jot down notes and reflections, making this each mom’s meeting place with God at the well (by the way, did you know that God’s first encounter with Hagar at the well was God’s first encounter in scripture with anyone at a well?).

I’ve already given this guide to a young mom I know. I was delighted to do so because I knew it would encourage and not add a heap of guilt in the life of a mom who is actually a great mom. I believe there are many moms under the weight of the same struggles Tara and Kathy found in their survey, who will be relieved to discover they are not alone and that God is with them and loves them as moms.

And a word for dads. Don’t let the title put you off. Many of us wrestle with similar issues (perhaps a companion might be written?). But sharing this with your wife may well help you understand life a bit more from her perspective, and what she struggles with as well as prompt you to explore how some of these struggles manifest in your own life.

This study may truly be a gift shared by two to a roomful of women going through it together. It’s great for whatever stage of being a mother one is in. Above all, this stands apart as not one more book of parenting advice but as an invitation to spiritual transformation occurring in five steps:

1. God meets us where we are.
2. God welcomes us into honest conversation.
3. God calls us to trust and obey.
4. God transforms us and sets us free.
5. God invites us to be agents of shalom.

Its the kind of refreshment one finds at a deep well with clean, cold water.

Listen to Tara and Kathy talk about Moms at the Well:

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.