Tara Edelschick Archives

Moms on the Way

Moms on the Way (IVP Bible Study Experience), Kathy Tuan-Maclean and Tara Edelschick. IVP Bible Studies (ISBN: 9781514014202) 2026

Summary: A seven week Bible study for groups with personal readings on following Jesus through the challenges of motherhood.

Being a mom can be challenging. Kathy Tuan-Maclean and Tara Edelschick know this from their own experience as moms. Then they talked to seven hundred other moms to learn about the challenges they faced. In 2024, drawing on this research, they published their first group study book, Moms at the Well, to begin to address facing those challenges by finding nourishment in Christ and in community with other moms. But their research raised more issues than they could cover in just one book, so they’ve returned with a sequel.

In Moms on the Way, they address seven more topics through scripture-based discussions in groups coupled with five days of personal readings and study that amplify the group discussion. The topics are:

When we need a friend
When we feel ashamed
When we feel resentful
When we feel like we don’t have enough
When we’re caught up in the rat race
When God invites us to embrace vulnerability
When all we can taste is bitterness

Each week’s group discussions begin with text introductions and opening activities and a short video clip [QR code in guide to access]. They follow by Bible study with questions to engage and apply the text. Then they conclude with a breath prayer, a “Holy Spirit check-in” to listen for what the Spirit is saying, and a written leader benediction. The studies ideally take about 90 minutes but leaders can adapt them for shorter periods, like a lunch hour.

The five personal studies look at smaller segments of the passage or related passages combining biblical study, reflection questions, prayer prompts and invitations. The guide allows for plenty of room to write in responses.

While I’m not a mom, there are several things I like about this guide. Firstly, shaming is out! Moms struggle with this enough and the authors create a shame-free space where people can be honest about everything from how little of the guide they were able to read to struggles with loneliness, resentment, competition with other moms, and even bitterness. They even address shame and how God beckons us to break the cycle of shame with a cycle of spiritual transformation.

Secondly, Tara and Kathy are real! They share honestly and vulnerably about their own struggles, some continuing, and how they are leaning into their faith. For example, Kathy writes about her bitterness when diagnosed with chronic kidney disease in her twenties and Tara when God felt absent to her when she was grieving her father’s death.

Finally, women in narratives often don’t have names. In several narratives, the authors give them names that make contextual sense. The mother of the groom at the wedding feast at Cana is Yedida. The woman Elijah stays with at Zarephath becomes Zerah. Finally, the Shunamite whose son Elisha raises is becomes Shona. Such names foreground and make characters real, often women, who reside in the background of scripture.

While the guide can be studied individually, the authors believe the communal experience of honest sharing and mutual learning is immeasurably enriching. If you are part of a mom’s group looking for a study discussion guide that takes you deeply into scripture as well as into honest sharing and reflection, this is an outstanding resource.

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

My review of Moms at the Well appears here: https://bobonbooks.com/2024/04/30/review-moms-at-the-well/

Cover image of "Moms at the Well" by Tara Edelschick and Kathy Tuan-Maclean

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: