I'm not a bad mom, and neither are you!

I'm not a bad mom.  I don't know about you, but surely I can't be the only mom who repeats that to herself on a near daily basis.  I'm not a bad mom, and neither are you.

A few weeks back, I had a less than stellar mom moment.  I was having a particularly frustrating time trying to get a screaming, squirmy baby to sleep.  Just as I achieved success, my middle little cracked the door open.  As she entered, I quietly but emphatically gestured for her to leave, but she ran to me instead, hugging my leg.  Suddenly, my temper broke, and I yelled at her to get out.  In a second, she was crying and so was baby.  And as my husband dragged a crying middle little out of the room and closed the door, remorse washed over me like waves on a jagged coastline, brutally battering me with guilt.  I lay the baby down and went to find her.  She was hugging Daddy, tears running down her cheeks, and I happened to walk in just in time to hear her say, "I was just trying to give her a hug."

In that humbling and heartbreaking moment, I did the only thing I could.  I scooped up my daughter in my arms, hugged her tightly, apologized for losing my temper, and told her I loved her.  Even though she moved on at that moment, the guilt didn't let go, and for days after she had forgotten this moment, I relived it with piercing clarity.  As the memory replayed in my mind like a broken record, so did that all too familiar refrain, "You're a bad mom.  YOU'RE a bad mom.  You're a TERRIBLE mother."

That's the thing about guilt...it just won't let go sometimes.   What should have been over and done with the moment I repented kept rearing up and attempting to devour me.  That's the enemy's MO, you see.  I believed the lie, and even worse, I began repeating it to myself.  It's so easy to doubt ourselves in this Instagram culture.  Friends post pictures of happy faces, fun being had by all, but there are no posts for our failures.  We don't hesitate to share our successes, but there are no photos posted of our faces burning with anger over a moment of disobedience.  There are no videos capturing our children throwing fits while we lock ourselves in our bathrooms, desperate for just a moment of sanity.  I've yet to see friends posting status updates on the difficulties of their marriages.  Sometimes, it's easy to look around at everyone, anyone else, and think to ourselves that we are the only ones who just can't quite seem to get it together.  It's isolating.  It's a lie.  Being a mother is hard, but we are not alone.  And a single moment of failure does not define us.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us.

Confession is such a blessed thing.  It's a one and done kind of event.  God in His mercy, removes every last drop of blame from us.  He completely takes it from us.  No matter how we struggle with Him and try to wrestle it back, it's gone.

I'm not a perfect Mom, but the truth is, NO ONE (short of God Himself) will ever love my babies like I do.  They have each been uniquely created by my Father and entrusted to my care to sharpen me, change me, refine me and sanctify me.  They are God's instruments for righteousness in my life and they are specially suited for me and I for them.  I need to relax and let some things go, and I suspect I'm not the only one.  Stop being so hard on yourself.  Stop beating yourself up.  Stop comparing yourself to everyone else.  No one is perfect, but we can be perfected, as we are yielded to the Spirit of God, working in us, often using the most unexpected and smallest people in our lives.