Motherhood=Humilty

"Motherhood does not require, thankfully, perfection. It simply requires commitment and humility." -Ann Voskamp


Never truer words.

Ann's blog..... this is a great blog where you can find more encouragement from Ann Voskamp....it has been a huge source of truth and encouragement for me lately.....

Motherhood has been very hard for me lately. I have lost my cool and my temper more times than I would like to admit. I have given into selfish feelings and desires of wanting things to go my way and my kids have paid the price during my mini-tantrums and yet, instead of beating myself up about it this week, I have clung to the above line.....I am NOT perfect, I know that....but as long as I am consistent and committed to raising my boys in the ways the Lord sets before me, than every and I do mean EVERY conflict and tantrum and meltdown is an opportunity to share the gospel with them and love them and train their hearts and show them how, not only do they need Jesus, BUT Momma needs a Savior to save her from herself daily. Left on my own, I will choose selfish feelings all the time and tear through my day with my own agenda and react to everything that comes my way through my own self lens and think nothing of it, I need something BIGGER than me, something more Holy to stand in my place and help me fight ME. In this process, I am challenged to do better the next time and hopefully this trial and error cycle of humility thing will produce fruit of a more pleasant kind in me to raise my kids in....But I know, my heart and it will always a need a Savior to save me from myself and my live-in-the-flesh moments this side of a redeemed new Heaven and Earth!

"Relationships cost.
It’s not that you aren’t going to blow it. It is what you do with it, when you do." - Ann Voskamp

In my anger and selfish dark heart, I sin. I sin against my kids and my husband. When I forget to be 'slow to anger' or forget to put on patience and gentleness or simply choose not to, my flesh and human nature is to just react how I FEEL and we all fall prey to that song and dance. We've been there, time and time again. SO, if we know we will fail in these areas sometimes, then we should be prepared for how we will handle this cycle and know that it will cost us to make things right again. It will cost us our pride, our humility. It will be the most unnatural thing in the world to put on, but when we do, when we chose humility, God transforms us and lays a protective and loving Grace balm over our hearts and the ones we are humbling ourselves in front of. Grace shouts louder and fills the gaps that anger has ripped open with words and actions. Grace is the only non-toxic air (Ann Voskamp) and if we allow ourselves to practice a repentant lifestyle with our kids, rather than a proud, puffed up one, than God can use ALL things, even our tantrums and outbursts, as good and teach our children what humility and forgiveness looks like. The more you practice putting on patience and self-control, it will become more natural. I am in the midst of CONSTANTLY reminding myself the fruits of the spirit. Liam and I wrote them out and put them on our door in the den so that we can meditate on them all day long, day and night.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; against such things there is no law." Galatians 5: 22-23

I can't be the only Mom who feels like her heart is in the right place, she longs to raise her children in a loving, graceFILLED and God centered way and then falls short daily and feels like a complete failure in the afterburn of momma-meltdown over sibling-fighting or whining or complaining or constant disobedience or drowning in the daily revolving door that is cooking-cleaning-laundry-cleaning. Ironically, when I begin to raise my voice at my children for yelling or tell them to stop whining after I've just finished whining about how small our house is to a friend, it is in those moments that I can feel the Holy Spirit tug on my heart and tell me to check my own heart and see where I myself need instruction and rebuke. To fix my own heart before I try and correct theirs.

All this to say, that these moments of mommy madness happen. They will come and visit a season, ebb and flow or stay a while a longer season. BUT if we choose to NOT waste these moments but use them for good, for teaching and instructing a child's heart that a lifelong pursuit of the Lord will include humility and repentance daily, as shown in Momma's need for her own attitude change quite often...if we are consistent in that, if we keep pursuing honesty and vulnerability with our kids and always being there with unconditional love, just as the LORD is with Momma when she has to say sorry for being angry or short tempered, THEN there will be fruit and our loving God will be able to use us, even on our ugliest heart days of all, to show a desperate need for him....for our kids AND for us. And to show His faithfulness to meet us there.

My own mother has shown humility to me and my brother time and time again. She is not perfect but I know that she loves fiercely and consistently. I know she was and is committed to her motherhood, even on bad days. I know that she practices fighting the feeling-cycle as well but even in her own selfish heart days, I trust that her love for me and my brother is unconditional. She gives, she continues to give and love and be a mom. She continues to learn in little moments how to let God shape her mom heart.

She carried me and birthed me as a newborn and advocated for me as a young child, disciplining me and my brother and teaching us right from wrong. She wiped my tears and covered my scrapes, she listened to my worries and always was affectionate and there. As I grew into teenagerhood, she sat with me as I cried about boys who hurt me or friends that were mean to me, she stayed up late typing papers with me or for me (ha) and fought over math with me. She taught me about 'killing with kindness' and caring for the least of these, she nurtured my sensitive heart and ministered to my doubting one, she always pointed things back to God who loved me so much and reminded me to always send my worries up, because He could handle it. She walked with me to my friend's funeral when I was 17 years old and she packed me up for college and cried the whole way home when she left. She sent care packages to me while away at school and when I became severely depressed to the point of a breakdown in college, she simply packed me up and moved me home without question and helped me to find my center again. She loved me and accepted me through ALL my terrible choices and bad ideas, she chose to love me through many a rebellious years. She helped me pick a wedding gown and she helped me buy maternity clothes when I was first expecting. She jumped on the first plane available to fly to me when Liam almost died at birth, 3 weeks early and she came to me immediately again when my daughter died and I needed her. The same woman who held me on my bed as a crying hormonal teenager distraught over a silly boy held me again, in the ICU, as I wailed and moaned over my dead daughter, she slept with me at the hospital so that Ian could go home and be with Liam and my mother was once again there for me, in my darkest hour. She helped me brush my hair and helped me get out of bed, she let me cry and cry for hours if I needed to and then let me laugh or say something dark and horrible if I needed to as well. My mother, even on her worst mommy-tantrum days, has always been consistent and committed to me, as her child. She will humble herself when she knows she has wronged someone and she will try to make it right, because relationships do cost. Even when she felt like she didn't know what to say or even said the wrong thing, never close to perfection like any of us, she stayed committed to me and consistent. See the things my heart remembers of my mom. I don't remember the mommy-meltdowns when I was seven or her bad mom days when I was 15. My heart remembers and knows that through thick and thin, good and bad, she has always been there...

Isn't that our best option? To not give up? Aren't His mercies new every morning? Keep going, keep walking in faith that God has obviously called you to motherhood if you have kids and that if He has done that, then HE will equip you for it. Even on your bad days. He will meet you at your worst heart moment and be enough for you, right then and there. His grace is sufficient, we hear that all the time BUT we moms must wear that as a banner and remember it daily. Enjoy and relish the good moments, BUT don't waste the bad ones either. God is sovereign over even those and He can bring about change, not only in your own heart as you reconcile to Him, but in your kid's hearts as they witness this very soul transaction between you and your God.

Mother's Day has been hard for me the last three years....I miss our daughter, and who she might be now, greatly because I feel like I have lost the privilege of 'mothering' my daughter like so many around me do....On my worst days, I can laugh outloud sometimes at how lucky she actually is to not have my 'mothering' sometimes, she is safe from it, from my selfishness.....But I am able to recognize the two gifts I have been blessed with, in my sons...and I will keep fighting to raise them up in the Lord and teach and train their hearts in a Gospel centered way, depsite my constant failures and bad mom days, because I know HE is faithful and gracious to those who keep persevering and choosing Him daily. And even on my bad days when I seem to choose ME more than Him, ME more than my kids, ME more than my husband, I know he is using every humbled cry and prayer of need for Him, to turn my heart back around and keep walking forward. I love that He uses my kids to show me my need for Him as they are the best accountability there is, to show the real me in how I treat them and love them and they model what I do or don't do....He uses our children as tools to refine us and mold us and to constantly keep us humble.

Happy Mother's Day to every Momma out there....to the ones that have their kiddos in their laps right now or maybe away at college or now who's kids have families of their own, AND to the momma's who mother like I do with my Sydney, one step this side of heaven, with their precious little ones who wait for them heavenside...

Motherhood, it IS costly, it is a daily battle, of dying to self to serve your little ones that you are training up and to give them over to the Lord daily because they are not our own. There was only one human being that was perfect and lived perfection in life and you and I are not Him...but when He lives in our heart, we have access to His wonderful grace and mercy to channel His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control AND love others with it. There is much to be gained from the lessons in humility, lessons in forgiveness and loving each other with a GospelLove. Relationships cost. But the return on the investment is promised to be beautiful.