Mothering is the best thing I’ve ever done. But I’ll be honest: it’s also the hardest.
There are enough myths floating around out there about christian motherhood to trip you up, and keep you feeling guilty for days.
Then there’s your own voice of condemnation playing on repeat inside your head. Making you feel like you won’t ever measure up.
Half the battle of motherhood is fought in the heart of a mother.
If the enemy can capture your heart and fill it full of lies about your identity and purpose, he’s won the battle.
The truth is, there’s no playbook for parenting; only the Bible. There’s no formula for mothering well; only relying daily on Jesus.
When we really understand what God says about our role as mothers, the pressure to attain some invisible goal line fades away.
Here are 9 encouraging and biblical truths for moms that will truly set you free!
1. Your Children Are Specifically Yours For a Reason
Before the beginning of the world, God decided that the children in your home should be given to you for kingdom purposes. Purposes you may not be aware of yet.
You have been deemed worthy to parent these children and lead them after Jesus, and you have been equipped to do so.
God chose YOU. With Jesus, you are enough, you have enough, and you do enough.
2. God Has a Unique Plan For Your Family
No matter what the whole world says about parenting and schooling and feeding and sleeping, God has a unique plan for your family and you are accountable to Him alone.
There are hundreds of books you can read, hundreds of voices you can listen to, and still hundreds more opinions that can end up derailing God’s plan for your family if you take every word to heart.
It’s your job to abide in Christ, keep your heart soft towards the movement of the Spirit in and around you, and then foster a godly environment in your home that allows your family to respond to the Spirit’s leading.
This will look slightly different for every family.
3. Your Identity Isn’t Tied To Your Kids
Before you were a mom, you were a child of God. Underneath all the layers of mothering, there is a person with a unique purpose in this world.
Nurture some of those things you felt passionate about doing before children. Allow yourself time once in a while to be you, apart from your kids.
It’s a healthy thing for your children to see you doing what God made you to do. It gives them permission to do what God has made them for, too.
4. You’re a Person, Not a Machine
When God made you, He did not make you because He needed someone just like you.
He made you because He wanted to enjoy you. He wanted to glorify Himself through your life.
So stop plate spinning and working your fingers to the bone. Let your house get dirty. Grow soap scum in the bathroom. Let your kids wear dirty socks and skip baths.
Observe the Sabbath so you can remember that God does not need you to keep the world spinning.
Your children feel their own worth, not by seeing how much Mama can do, but by how much Mama believes that she is a beloved child of God, worthy of rest and play and fun.
You are not the glue that holds the family together.
You are a member of the family, playing one role, and Jesus is holding everything together (Colossians 1:17).
5. Jesus Loves Your Neighbor’s Family Just As Much As Yours
My family is not special. Our calling is no more important than any other family’s calling.
At first that doesn’t sound very encouraging, does it? But when you realize that in the Kingdom of Heaven, the most important family connection is spiritual instead of physical, it frees you from trying to “keep up with the Joneses”.
Truthfully we are just one small family unit, living in one place, among one group of people with the task of loving our community well and shining out the light of Christ to them.
We are meant to be part of a much larger family, one that is made up of believers from all walks of life.
We are responsible for leaving the footprints of Jesus in our place- not the legacy of our family name.
6. It’s Okay That You Have Imperfect Kids
Children have sinful natures, and contrary to popular belief, they are not extensions of ourselves. It takes time and effort to train their character and bring them up in the discipline of the Lord.
We are also limited and finite. While we all long to speak just the right words that will reach our children exactly where they’re at in life, sometimes our words fail us.
We desire to help them overcome negative character traits, but sometimes our children have hard, stubborn hearts.
We want to help them handle disappointments or upsets with grace, and yet our own behaviors model something entirely opposite of what we’re telling them to do.
And sometimes situations are just completely out of our control.
Your child didn’t come with instructions. But you can go to God’s Word for help, and you can pray to the One who formed your kids in the womb and therefore knows them even better than you do.
The Holy Spirit can and does work in the lives of our kids. He’s working right now.
We just may not see the fruit for a while- a long while in some cases. Our responsibility is to be faithful; change is up to God.
7. You Don’t Have to Love Every Minute of Motherhood
I believe staying at home with your children is a worthy and delightful calling. But who loves every minute of anything?
As with all endeavors, mothering comes with good days and bad days. Good seasons and more difficult seasons.
Even if you strive for a positive attitude and continually thank the Lord for His blessings, there will probably be days when you dream of just sipping lemonade at a quiet, solitary beach.
Life will not always be as it is now. Though Satan tries to trick us into despair, he does not know the future, so we choose to trust God instead.
That said, I don’t believe it’s helpful to indulge in daydreams of a time when the kids and life are perfect.
It’s counterproductive for us to dream of days that belong in a season other than the one we’re in. And it leads to ungratefulness and a bitter heart.
8. Mothering Is Shaped By Mission
In the midst of laundry and bickering children, the undercurrent of our life’s mission is shaping how we mother.
If your life’s mission is to acquire every good thing this world deems good, then your mothering will shift to hold your mission. You may work 2 jobs to get ahead and shuttle your kids from sitter to sitter to sitter.
If your life’s mission is to rear successful kids who get into the best colleges, your mothering will shift to accommodate all the schooling and extracurricular activities and volunteer hours it takes to accomplish that.
If your life’s mission is to point your kids to Jesus and send them out into the world as people who love their neighbors as themselves, your mothering will reflect that.
What is your life’s mission? Look at how you mother your children.
9. You Can Do All Things Through Christ
I can mother my kiddos, day in and day out, because His Spirit dwells within me and gives me strength. On my own, I am simply inadequate for the task.
I don’t have enough love, patience, or grace to parent my children the way they need me to without daily relying on Christ.
When my cup is empty and I’m brimming instead with frustration and anger, I need to draw from the Wellspring of Life. And thankfully, He has more than enough resources to fill my portion.
As Christians, we cannot mother well if we don’t believe that Jesus has chosen us and equipped us for this work called mothering.
And we can’t believe this if we waiver on the simple truth that He loves us completely and unconditionally, and lavishes that same love on our children.
If I could give you one last little bit of encouragement to grasp onto, it would be this: you are the person God chose to hold His babies. Lift up your head and mother them like you believe that.
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