Ditch the 10-point plan and hold up the white flag…

Are you longing to be a better mom? There is so much pressure on us today, notwithstanding the current lockdown situation – extra housework, work-from-home, school-from-home, financial stress, no KFC as a quick rescue meal. All rattling around in a small space together. You’ve lost it more than a few times with your family and maybe you feel like a failure. Perhaps you’re tired of just ‘trying harder’. Tired of looking at all those “10 ways to be a better Mom” articles that pop up when Mother’s Day looms. Well, perhaps this is for you.

My journey to motherhood was an unexpected one. Finding a marriage partner at 36 was a miracle in itself (read about it here). Then, two more miracles. After a journey of infertility, my husband and I adopted our first son Ethan-John (or EJ), who is now six, and then our second son Timothy (or Timo), who is now four. They are our pride and joy.

We live a few blocks from our church. I get really excited about our church vision, which is to “Call, equip and send disciples for the glory of God”. When the boys were little I would often say a quick prayer as we passed by. One day, I prayed out loud “Thank you God for our church! Please help us to send lots of disciples out into the world.”

Hmm does my three year old know what a disciples is?

I launched into my explanation “EJ, I want to be a disciple of Jesus! Do you want to be one of his disciples?”

“No mommy, I want to be Jesus!”

Not the response I was hoping for.

As a mom, I want to raise my kids to love God and love people. I want them to know Him, and to hear Him calling them by name. I want to equip them to live wholesome lives. I want them to be sent out into the world to show love, to be responsible for all that has been put in their care, and to live a life on purpose.

How many of us long to be successful in this calling of motherhood? And I wonder what results we are looking for when we try and measure our success, even if subconsciously? Do we judge it by our kids’ behaviour? Their school reports? Their sporting ability? Or perhaps by how good we’re feeling and how well our children are responding to us?

Last year I was asked to share something (anything!) about motherhood on Mother’s Day in front of a crowd. Well, if I thought I had a handle on motherhood when I agreed to do the talk, the two weeks leading up to the event proved me wrong.

I had a morning where my five year old refused to go to school – he had a complete meltdown, complemented with kicking and screaming. Knowing that this was a battle we couldn’t lose, I threw him into the car with his dad, closed the door quickly and hoped for the best. Markus was left with the job of trying to calm him down over the 25 minute ride to school. And no, he wasn’t strapped in.

We are a bilingual family. That same week I gave my child a consequence for using a bad word – only to find out that the word is in fact in the German dictionary. Abgefackelt. Yip, you can look it up. (Ok – maybe it wasn’t completely innocent as I’m not sure why he would be talking about something being “torched”.) Well, I just told myself we would survive the ordeal and that he couldn’t be permanently scarred from a bit of soap in the mouth.

Then, one evening when asking my youngest if he’d like to pray and talk about his bad day to God, he politely declined ‘No thanks!’

Motherhood is of course full of joys. Like when my oldest told me the other day I’m the best mommy in the whole world and gave me the biggest hug. And it’s full of failures – to the point where sometimes we wonder if our kids will ever recover, or if we’ve damaged them for life. But God has been impressing on my heart that He’s not so much interested in our successes, or even our failures, as he is in our surrender.

Sometimes, when teaching Bible stories to young children, I find visual aids helpful. The kids really get it. I hold up a decent sized stone and a soft, squishy teddy bear to talk about hard hearts and soft hearts. I’ll share a story where the Pharisees or teachers of the law are pictured with folded arms and scowls on their faces – the ones unimpressed that Jesus was hanging out with ‘sinners’. Are their hearts soft like the teddy or hard like the rock? “Hard hearts!” they shout as they point to the rock. And what about the lady who came to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to him while her sister was so busy cooking a meal? “Soft heart!”

There’s a story that Jesus tells about a Pharisee and a Tax Collector going up to the temple to pray together, each with a completely different attitude in approaching God. I wonder what would happen if we took some liberties and adapted this story to contrast two mothers who come to God in prayer.

The first mom stands proudly and speaks loudly so that perhaps someone else may hear “Thank you Lord that I’m not like all those other mothers out there. I’m not a shopaholic, a wine lover, or a gossip. I go to church every Sunday, teach my kids Bible verses and I limit their screen time. They’re well behaved and getting the recognition they deserve at school.”

The second mom falls to her knees, clasps her hands to her chest and cries out “Lord, I’m struggling! I don’t know how to do this. I’m in desperate need of your wisdom and mercy. Help me!”

Can you guess which heart is hard and which heart is soft? And which prayer pleases our heavenly Father?

Today, whether we are adoptive, biological or even spiritual mothers I don’t believe we will find true success in performance and worldly results. Rather, with our hearts soft and surrendered, we just need to ask for help. God will not disappoint us!

 

 

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:  “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Luke 18:9-14