My mother describes recalling a moment in our large van at a stop light, exhausted and totally overwhelmed. It had been a typical day of mothering. Like most others, it began early with practicing, finishing homework, packing lunches, feeding, clothing, bathing, changing diapers, cleaning up, driving to music lessons, cleaning up again, not to mention teaching, holding, comforting, prodding, enforcing and teaching again. But that day, in a quiet moment at a stop light, the exhaustion was almost too much to bear. “What am I doing? Does any of this matter?!” she silently cried out. “I am so tired.”

Her plea, echoing that of countless mothers throughout time, did not go unanswered. Profound words of comfort filled her mind, “Be not weary in well-doing. You are laying the foundation of a great work, and out of small things proceedeth that which is great.”

It was an insight she would need again and again as she gave her all to enable our growth. She could not have known then the joy she would experience in what she was giving for us — joy that would eclipse seasons of sorrow and struggle. But she had been given the truth that would lead to that joy, for motherhood is the grand story of small and simple things.

In our world, it isn’t intuitive to see grandness in small and simple things. Visionary, high-status work always seems to begin with the mantra, “THINK BIG!” In contrast, work with the lowest status, as physicist and author Fritjof Capra explains, “is work where the tangible evidence of the effort is most easily destroyed … work that has to be done over and over again without leaving a lasting impact.” In other words, the kind of work that is central to the nurturing of life; work that mothers are often most intimately connected to.

We seem to have gotten things upside down in our “Think Big” culture. For it is precisely the small and simple work of nurturing that gives meaning to any other work. As author C.S. Lewis insightfully said, it is the work for which all other work exists.

I felt that truth as a child. There seemed to be no question that my mother’s “small and simple” work was grand. But for years as a professionally working, single, childless woman, I wondered what my place was in the “grand work” of motherhood. Finally, after marrying and being blessed with a child, struggles with being able to have another child led me to question whether or not I really was a “full” mother. It certainly did not appear to be the grand work I had seen my own mother do with a large family.

But motherhood is not defined by number of children, nor is its power and influence limited to one’s own children. My own mother often described Mother Teresa’s learning as she grappled with God’s call for her to minister to the poorest of the poor. Depression set in as she realized she was only one in an ocean of tremendous poverty and need. Pleading for some light to lead her out of the darkness, she was given an insight that transformed her, and set her on a path to bless thousands. “Just touch the one nearest you.” This single, childless woman became Mother to thousands — not because she set out to “Think Big” but because she set out to bless one, the nearest one, whoever that happened to be.

That is the great legacy of motherhood — “small things done with great love,” to nurture dignity and capacity in another soul. And it is those small things that lead to grand outcomes. No higher tribute could be paid to the valiant mothers who, with children clinging to their skirts helped lay the foundations of our own nation, than that written on The Pilgrim Mother monument in Plymouth — “They Came as Mothers.” It was small and simple things done with courage, fortitude and devotion that brought a new nation into being. And it is those same small and simple things that nourish individuals and nations today.

Jenet Erickson is a family sciences researcher and a former assistant professor at Brigham Young University who lives in Salt Lake City.