I have had days when I wake up early, teach my weight-training class, come home, feed my kids a nutritious breakfast, and then proceed to churn my way through homeschooling, emails, making food, nursing babies, reading to toddlers, housecleaning, giving my husband attention, and even texting my friends back in a somewhat timely manner, only to berate myself for having “failed” when I fall into bed, exhausted, at 11:00 p.m. with five things left undone on “my list.”
That’s unwarranted mom guilt right there, plain and simple.
I have also had days when I spend too much time on my phone, distracted by social media or trying to track down the best price on a rug for the dining room. My kids get my fractured attention, dinner is haphazard, and I crawl into bed feeling scattered and guilty that I have not done my best. And you know what? I’m right. That guilt—or Holy Spirit conviction, rather—is warranted because I truly did not approach my profession of motherhood with excellence “as for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23 ᴇꜱᴠ) that day.
Maybe you feel guilty because you worry you’re not splitting your time evenly between your children.
Maybe you feel guilty because your child is sick, and you wonder what you could have done to prevent it.
Maybe you feel guilty because you lost your temper again.
Maybe you feel guilty because you don’t really enjoy the stage your kid is in.
Maybe you feel guilty because you’re in a season of overwhelm, and you just can’t seem to “do it all” like you once did.
Maybe you feel guilty because your kids don’t get to do as many activities as their peers.
Maybe you feel guilty because you don’t get as much accomplished in a day as your neighbor, Becky.
(These are, by the way, actual worries expressed by actual readers whom I polled about this topic.)
Here’s the truth: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).
Also: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
In addition: “Your love has delivered me from the pit of oblivion, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back” (Isaiah 38:17 ʙꜱʙ).
The good news is that although we are all born under the curse of sin and death, Christ took the full brunt of that curse on Himself on the cross. Our debt is fully covered. We stand guiltless before the throne of grace.
Hallelujah, right?
So why are we sometimes so beset with mom guilt? And about things over which we often have little control?
First, as I mentioned above, we often feel guilty because we are assuming a mantle of responsibility that was never ours to wear: the Cape of Complete Competence. We are charging through our days with the assumption that God couldn’t possibly care about our mundanities—which means we must ace them
on our own—when Scripture makes it very clear that He cares about every unwashed hair on our dry-shampooed heads. When I consistently commit my ways (all of them) to the Lord, that heavy mantle slips from my shoulders, and I am able to stand erect in the confidence of Christ’s “enoughness.”
Second, when we fail to invite the Lord into every aspect of our daily grind, we leave ourselves open to Satan’s attack. As 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” Lucifer would love nothing better than to plump us up with lies of false condemnation and then gobble us whole. He can’t take our salvation away, but he can steal our peace if we let him. He is the “father of lies” (John 8:44), and he loves nothing better than tangling us up in a web of shame and self-focus.
I could go on, but my point is that we believe even the most outlandish untruths when we are not grounded in God’s Word. There is no better cure for deceit than the medicine of Scripture.
Third, until we get to heaven, we will continue to fall short of God’s glory every day. Dismissing all mom guilt as “Satan’s lies” or “society’s unrealistic expectations” can mask the truth that we really are guilty of the thing the Holy Spirit is whispering in our ears. Second Corinthians 13:5 (ᴇꜱᴠ) says to “examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?”
If Jesus is in us, there is no fear in truthful self-examination. For “if God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). We can acknowledge areas for improvement without sinking into despair. We can receive the timely admonishment of a friend without defensiveness. We can address blind spots without letting them define our worth.
It’s kind of like that coffee-tinged hot chocolate I mentioned earlier. I know many of you will think it nothing short of sacrilege to compare your favorite drink to sin, but when we truly abhor something enough to recognize it for what it is right away, we won’t be able to tolerate it, even in small amounts. May we be so in tune with God’s standards of holiness that we truly “hate what is evil” and “cling to what is good” (Romans 12:9). May we be grateful for that pang of genuine conviction that helps us to repent quickly and completely of whatever is stealing our affections from Christ.
The culture of mediocre motherhood will tell us that mom guilt is (take your pick) society’s, men’s, or our mom’s tool to control us and that we should ignore it because we are perfect just the way we are. The Bible tells us that “there is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:11), but despite that, nothing “can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus,” and we are “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37-39).
The worldly approach represents a flimsy and false foundation of bravado, which will crumble in the face of sleepless nights, hormonal swings, and “bad days.” The biblical approach promises freedom from circumstantial control in favor of daily growth and sanctification.
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather live in freedom every day of the week.
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Mama, you are worthy of the awesome responsibility God has given you.
M Is for Mama, by Abbie Halberstadt, offers advice, encouragement, and scripturally sound strategies seasoned with a little bit of humor to help you embrace the challenge of biblical motherhood and raise your children with love and wisdom.
Learn more about the book and how to purchase here.
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