Encouragement for the Emotionally Weary Mom

Encouragement for the emotionally weary mom

Sometimes I feel like I have to have it all together.  Actually, since that’s the goal I feel like I should all the time and consequentially I feel like a failure because I don’t.  My house isn’t perfect.  My form of discipline is constantly needing tweaking.  I don’t have the perfect come back to the snide remarks people throw.  Speaking of the upcoming election, I don’t understand how our country got to this point.  It would be laughable if it wasn’t true.  SNL doesn’t need to do a parody of the debates because they’re funny on their own.  Funny and simultaneously disheartening.  I don’t know if I’m going to homeschool for the rest of my children’s schooling lives.  Some days I don’t know if I can make it through the week.  I don’t know if I will ever lose those 20 pounds I promise myself I’ll lose before the next family picture day.  I don’t know what to do with the jute rug I bought that sheds all over the place.  I hate it but it wasn’t cheap.  I don’t know if we’re going to the beach as we had planned because there is an impending hurricane coming to the coast.  Actually, maybe I know that one but I don’t know if we’ll reschedule before it gets too cold or hold off till next year.  I could go on and on and on but you get the point right?  There is so much that I don’t know.

I don’t know as many Bible verses as I wish I did but I’m working on that.  I wish I remembered more from my theology classes from college.  I wish everything wasn’t a debate these days so I don’t have to win these arguments…even if they are only inside my head.  Is smoking bad?  Should Christians drink alcohol?  What kind of music most honors God?  Is kneeling during the pledge wrong?  Matt Walsh stirred up an old question, can a Christian be pro-choice?  Ahhh, I think I know the answers to these questions.  I’ve spent hours and hours and hours thinking about them and others like them.  You know what dawned on me today?  It’s not a new revelation but it felt new today.  I don’t have to know it all.

I don’t have to have it all figured out.

I don’t.  The end.

It’s good to know what I believe and why.  I believe in teaching doctrine from a young age.  It’s important.  Everything else though, it’s okay if I don’t know it all.  I’ll never know all there is about God but I don’t think that yearning for knowledge should ever stop.

I don’t have to win every breastfeeding/bottle feeding debate or cloth diaper/disposable diaper debate.  I don’t have to have the debate in my head when I read one going on on the internet.  I can scroll on.  I don’t have to know the pros and cons of CIO/attachment parenting methods.  I’m past that stage now and I don’t need to stay up to date on those debates.

I don’t know what the future holds but as cliche as it is, I know Who holds the future.  I do.  I’m intimately connected with Him.  I can talk to Him anytime I want.  No appointment necessary.

So what if my house isn’t completely clean?  I have kids and I’m pouring my life into them right now.  They’re constantly growing which requires me to change discipline methods sometimes.  That’s a good thing and it doesn’t mean I’m doing something wrong.  I’m just adapting to the situation before me.  …and it’s okay if I do mess up.  We’re human, right?

We don’t have to have it all figured out.  We’ll learn as we go.

The Mission of Being a Mom

The mission of being a mom

Some of my earliest childhood memories is from going to church with my grandmother.  I remember the red buttons on the pew and how I would neatly stack the quarters my grandmother gave me for offering on them each week.  I remember how my aunt would always share a half a stick of gum with me.  I remember how proud everyone was of me that I could recite the Lord’s prayer from memory.  I can still sing the songs that I was taught in Sunday School there even though I haven’t heard them for years.  I can vividly remember hearing the story about the woman at the well and how my little ears heard the “woman and the whale.”  Oh, how I wish there was flannel graph that day!  That story perplexed my little pre-school mind and it stuck with me.  It was years later before the real meaning of the story stuck out to me.  To this day, when I hear the story about the Samaritan woman I pause for a moment and think back to my mental image of a woman and a whale.

It’s a funny story to look back on now but at the same time it terrifies me.  It’s paralyzing to think of how much little minds can remember.  That whale is etched in my mind.  Oh, how I desire to train my daughter and son up right.  Being a parent is an enormous responsibility….and opportunity.  I don’t want to squander it.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says, “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.”

Teaching children about God and His Word is a non-stop, 24-7 duty.  As I’m reminding myself again that I need to be intentional about what I’m teaching my children I want to encourage you to do the same.  We’re teaching them things every day by the way we live and behave.  Let’s make sure we’re teaching them spiritual truths too.  What a blessing it is to be a spiritual guide to our children!