Laying Down Parent Perfection
Do you every catch yourself losing your patience?
Do you feel the need to check out because you are so done with parenting?
Or how about wanting to reach for a glass of wine because it has been one LONG day and it’s only 4 o’clock.
Or the countless of times you reheated your coffee only to say the heck with it and drink it already?
Have you tried endlessly to have this perfect parenting, reading all the books, checking off all the lists, searching and asking millions of questions only to find yourself failing?
I get it mom friend. I have been there. Quite a bit actually. With each child I kept trying to have this perfect parenting strategy, perfect list that will somehow within a snap of a finger, come all together. Chore charts, to-do lists, Pinterest boards, almost all the things and quite honestly, I found myself more tired than usual.
I was worn out, exhausted and I checked out a few times. I didn’t know why and I didn’t like it.
Until the day God showed me how parenting really is like and what it is not.
Parenting can be so daunting yet so beautiful.
Parenting can be so tiring yet so fun.
Parenting can be filled with laughter and with tears.
Parenting has its mistakes and lessons.
Parenting is filled with grace, forgiveness, and mercy.
Parenting…. it can be so many things at once. But it always is filled with unconditional love.
What if we lay down our perfect parenting strategies at the feet of Jesus and began leaning more into our Father, to help guide us as we parent together for our children?
What if, instead of us trying to lean to our own understanding, begin to say “Okay I can’t do this, Father I need you to come sweep in my home, my heart and teach me to parent. Show me because I have no idea what I am doing, I admit I do not know it all.”
What if we trust the Lord with all our hearts, and in all our ways acknowledge him in everything, including the parenting? (Proverbs 3:5-6).
Our Heavenly Father isn’t just our father, He is our mother, our best friend, He is our everything, and even in the moments of parenthood, the exhausting, loving, good, messy, dirty, clean days, He is there.
What if instead of juggling around so many things at once, we lay them out at the table (what I mean is write them out on paper, there’s something that happens when its written on paper) and begin to take out what needs to be taken out and keep what is most important.
I think so often we get burnt out, wanting to check out, because we put too much on our plates. We feel we need to have it all together or we feel like a failure when another mom looks like she has it all together. We isolate ourselves sometimes without gathering with encouraging uplifting women.
A lot of the times, which this is hard to admit, we do it to ourselves.
Wanting perfection. Wanting things done now. Not truly resting, stepping away from social media, or Pinterest, whatever tasks and to-do list.
Mothering is not about perfection, it is about learning along the way. Leaning to the one who is our Father, Mother, the very Love of our life.
Mama,
I know your hard days and easy days. The sibling fights and the sibling love.
I know some nights seem so long and it feels as if they will never end.
I know the teething stage and the fussy stage. The days when they just want to cling to you and days when they aren’t so clingy.
The days laundry is forgotten in the dryer, and hey to be honest even the washer, because your little one just wants to be on your lap.
I know the dishes piled in the sink because you’re exhausted.
I know the very naps you want to sneak in but is hard to do.
Mama, I know you are trying to be the best mom that you can be without a fail. I know you are trying to do housework and keep up with the kids, including yourself and the spouse. I see you. I see your tears, the sweat and the exhaustion. I see it. I see the hard work you are putting in only to see it get left unnoticed. I see and feel the days you want to check out and not hear another word, sound or peep.
Single mamas, I know the everyday struggles with that too, I was there once.
I know the good days ahead seem impossible to get to. The days that seem you can’t think clearly or even think at all. I see the days when you want a hot long bath but fingers are under the door. I see you wondering and thinking that “only if I had a spouse it would make things easier” when reality, no spouse can fill that gap. Only Jesus can dear friend. I see you to friend.
Mama, my dear sweet friend, let me tell you, the day will come when they don’t want you to tuck them in good night any longer. When they no longer want to crawl into bed with you. There will be a time you get to grocery shop without cries, without the snot all over you, or a kid(s) in the basket. Long sleeping nights will come. Non-teething days will soon end. Potty training days will be done with. The house will soon be tidy and the laundry won’t be forgotten. Toys will no longer exist because they now have grown up. Soon the house will be quiet and you won’t hear a peep, a sound, sibling fights or fingers under the door when you are taking a bath.
But until that comes, mama, hang tight and hold onto these memories. They truly are treasured memories. Instead of trying to live in perfection of the home, perfection of the parenting, trying to do all the tasks and endless life things, lay them down today friend and instead seek God’s grace on each day. Stop searching for perfection, stop striving for perfection, stop looking at others as if they are perfect. It is time we lay this lie of perfection down and begin to lean to the one who IS perfect. Our Father. The very one who can guide us as a mother in the tired days, in the messy days, in the very hard and even easy days.
Run to the Father, sit at Jesus’ feet and know he is our very best friend, our comfort, our peace in times we need it most. He is all and everything we need to become the mother we are called to be, as we train our children up in the way they should go. ♥️
Call up your mama friend and talk. You are NOT alone. And if you are in need of prayer, because what mom isn’t, submit them here.
“Father, I thank you so very much for my dear mama friend reading this today. I know that you are wrapping her in your arms right now holding her so close to you as she mothers her children. We know mothering is difficult, long, hard, beautiful and messy some days. Some days we have no clue how to parent and some days we feel it isn’t all that bad. Father, may you continue to guide my friend as she teaches the very children you blessed her with, give her the wisdom and discernment she needs, along with a teachable spirit to be able to receive correction from you in a gentle loving way. You teach us too Father and we are very grateful you teach us. Thank you for never leaving us. Bless her heart, bless her children, bless her teachings for her children. May the words she speaks be of kindness, love, gentleness and self-control. Bless her with a community of godly friends who love you with all their hearts, who will love her children too, and have walked ahead of her to help pick her up in the rough times. In Jesus Name, amen.“
