If
there is one thing I want to do well, it’s rearing my children to know God's
voice and love his ways. But if there is one area that I feel most inadequate
in, it's rearing my children to know God's voice and love his ways, and every
other little thing I’m trying to teach them under this larger umbrella, from
how to study for a test to engaging in polite social interactions.
I
panic when I think of my children embarking into adulthood, typically because I
imagine that they’ll have to call me to come tie their shoes or they’ll freeze
to death because I'm not there to remind them to wear pants rather than shorts
in the winter. Or they’ll spend every waking minute in front of a video game
console because I’m not there to monitor every second of their activities.
Those concerns, however, pale in comparison to the greatest hopes I harbor for
my sons. I want them to become men of integrity and character. I want them to
know deep in their bones that walking with the Lord is the path of abundance
and joy. But I can barely imagine them driving, much less becoming the
compassionate, strong, godly men I pray for them to be.
And
then I remember that a man isn’t built in a day and to keep my eyes in the
moment, to take small steps, to do the next thing. I find myself most overcome with the task of motherhood when I
despise the day of small things (Zechariah 4:10) and when I gauge my own
strength as a catalyst for the growth of my children. When I look to myself, I
am fully aware of how powerless I am. I feel like I should be better at this
than I am. Or maybe it’s that I feel like all these things come easily to a
“good mother” so I must not be one. I want to be a good mother but how do I get
there?
And
then I remember that a man isn’t built in a day and to keep my eyes in the
moment, to take small steps, to do the next thing. I find myself most overcome with the task of motherhood when I
despise the day of small things (Zechariah 4:10) and when I gauge my own
strength as a catalyst for the growth of my children. When I look to myself, I
am fully aware of how powerless I am. I feel like I should be better at this
than I am. Or maybe it’s that I feel like all these things come easily to a
“good mother” so I must not be one. I want to be a good mother but how do I get
there?
I
am so impatient with myself, so quick to throw my hands up in frustration or
surrender. And I find myself thinking that God feels that same way toward me:
impatience that I’m not further along, frustration that I fail, irritation at
my faithless worrying. Those thoughts show that I often perceive God huffing at
my weaknesses, wishing I could get it together already, arms crossed and foot
tapping. The good thing is, however, that he knows we are weak mothers and that
he doesn’t expect us to be anything else. In fact, he wants me to embrace my
limits.
He’s
been talking to me about this through His Word. Some of it has been conviction.
All of it has been hope-filled. The main point he is driving into my heart over
and over and over is that I cannot manage my life, I cannot control or change
my children, and I cannot work hard enough to produce men of valor. I am weak.
I have no authority, nor power, to change the hearts of my children.
But
he doesn’t stop there, just driving nails in my coffin. Instead, he points to 2
Corinthians 12:9: “My power is made perfect in weakness.” While I am feeble and
weak in motherhood, he is all-powerful. He created my children, he knows them
more intimately than me, and he has plans for them that are good. He promises
to be strong in my weakness as a mother.
Perhaps
this is why motherhood seems so daunting and where I make it far more difficult
than it has to be--because I don’t like to admit my weakness. I don’t like to
admit my inabilities or acknowledge how little control I have over their hearts
and actions.
But
perhaps this resistance to weakness is also a resistance to the very
power--God’s power--I crave to pulse through their lives and my own.
This,
yes this, is a godly mother: a mother willing to acknowledge her weakness
before a grace-giving, power-filling God. Through daily dependence on God’s
Spirit, he takes our lack of wisdom and our feeble efforts and allows us to be
a major cultivator of beautiful fruit in the hearts of our children.
This
is so what I want: to know deep in my soul that a good mother is not one who
bakes intricate treats, who schools a certain way, who manages her household
within an inch of its life, or who has her children in a million wonderful
activities. A good mother is one that acknowledges her need for the power of
God to enable her to train and teach her children. A good mother is one who
rests (and glories!) in the ability of God to change the hearts of her
children. She is one who prays and acts in faith, believing that God can take a
meager, imperfect offering and turn it into a miracle. A miracle that showcases
the beauty and power, not of a great mother, but of a great God.
This post is a revised version of one of my chapters in Desiring God's book, Mom Enough.
