I really tried to be a good mother.
Yet, I’m still failing.
I still yell, still grit my teeth when I’m angry, (what is it with teeth gritting?) and revert to old patterns.
A couple of weeks ago my oldest and I got into it in front of my youngest son’s best friend. Afterward, I hid upstairs, stuffed the pillow over my face and lamented for the 50 millionth time:
“Here I am Lord, I blew it again, now what?”
The familiar mom guilt swallowed me whole. I felt like an idiot for losing my marbles, again. In front of my son’s friend, again.
As I laid in bed wallowing, I felt the Lord nudge me and say, “so make it right”.
So, I sat the boys down and explained that my temper is something I still struggle with, but praise Jesus I’m working on it. Okay the true story: I had a snot-slinging crying fest and by the time I was done, they were all three looking at me like: “Okay…awkward.”
At first I was a bit mortified, but as I looked at them, it dawned on me why I not only needed this confession, but they did as well.
There’s going to be days when these kids totally blow it. When they can’t seem to drop that thing, or stop doing that, or get it together, no matter how much they try. (Paul talked about this Romans 7:15-25, thank you Paul for keeping it real).
So, after cleaning up my snot mess, I gave them the messy truth: You have messes, your friends have messes and we all have issues that sometimes take years to overcome.
No one is exempt.
And, here’s what I really wanted them to know:
Surrender. God has it, you and your mess, and loves you right in the middle of it. And never let these two words stray too far from your lips:
“Please help.”
He never tires of us asking, even if it’s 50 million times over the same issue.
Surrender. The word lingered with me all day and I realized I needed to preach the same gospel to myself.
Striving to be a good mother for sure is an admirable goal and some days we may feel we got it somewhat right.
But, what happens when life happens? Hard seasons of illness, marriage or money issues, and we feel we are the furthest thing from the chick on facebook who seems to have her mom act together. (btw she doesn’t, there are issues there too, or she hasn’t had a teenager, yet.)
What then?
Does that make us horrible moms? No, it makes us normal moms who love their kids fiercely and are just trying to deal as best as we can.
So, here’s where my perspective is shifting, if my goal is just trying to be a “good mom”, my guilt and emotions will flop all over the place when I make mistakes.
But rather, if my heart is positioned toward being a surrendered mom; surrendering control, surrendering being a perfect parent, and asking “please help” daily, that is not only attainable, but feels so much lighter. My shoulders are already lifting.
Dear fellow mamas, let’s lay the mom guilt down, and surrender being perfect parents.
May we raise our white flags together.
