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December 29, 2024 - January 10, 2025
One of the most miraculous things that walking with Christ does for every believing mama who will receive its gift is to grant us not only a right view of hardship but also the strength to choose that perspective day after day instead of defaulting to victim status.
Some will interpret this as a slam on all women, but I believe it is, instead, an acknowledgment of the immense sway we hold over the atmosphere of our homes.
The bald-faced nature of the suggestion that, since one baby is logistically easier than two, a woman might be better off murdering one of her own children to keep her hard more “manageable” shines a lurid spotlight on the deeply held postmodern cultural view that we should flee from the hard, whenever possible—and that our lives (and our children’s lives) are our own to do with as we please.
Forgiveness can be excruciatingly hard. I will never deny that. But it certainly isn’t bad. Unforgiveness, in fact, is the ultimate bad idea as it has the power to torpedo us in life-destroying ways: Torpedo relationships. Proverbs 10:12 says, “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.” Hinder our prayer life. Psalm 66:18 says, “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” Inhibit healing. James 5:16 says, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” Make us susceptible to the Enemy’s attack.
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Have a conversation with a trusted older woman, your husband, or your accountability partner about the unforgiveness you feel (and why you feel it) and ask them to intercede for your heart to be softened and your perspective to be shifted toward that of Christ’s example of ultimate sacrifice and forgiveness.
What are some truths from Scripture that combat our desire to protect our right to “stay mad”?
wrecking your family’s peace and giving her panic attacks. Just because something is challenging or hurtful or difficult does not mean that it possesses an inherently righteous quality or that
There’s nothing in the Beatitudes about “blessed are those who grit their teeth the hardest through the most frustrating or fruitless situations, for theirs is the biggest martyr trophy.”
Doing everything ourselves without asking for help is hard and not good. Ignoring our emotions and pretending that everything is fine when we’re drowning is hard and not good.
Notice the progression of growth in the verses above: endurance to character, character to hope, hope to love. But notice also that this verse refers not to our tendency to plow through clear roadblocks in the name of survival but to the kind of God-allowed and God-orchestrated hard scenarios that He sustains us through for our good and His glory. It ends with hope and God’s love in our hearts, not exhaustion and depression.
Commit to praying about and discussing with your husband (or, if no husband, someone trusted and godly) some alternatives or solutions to the “hard-and-bad” circumstance. As the Lord reveals solutions, step forward in faith to implement them, even if they feel hard too.
I will talk more in a bit about the kinds of efforts that yield the biggest practical payoffs, but first I want to note this: We live in a world that glorifies instant gratification in every aspect of our lives—food, sex, money, attention, and, yes, friendship. According to tidbits of advice passed out on morning talk shows or in the glossy pages of women’s magazines, if a girlfriend isn’t your “ride-or-die” (if she won’t follow you into and support you in any scenario), she’s not worth the effort. And if it doesn’t work out right away, it wasn’t meant to be.
Obviously, not every mom-friendship idea will work out as seamlessly as this one, but I do think this example illustrates something crucial to godly friendships: When God calls us to make the effort, we must obey. He alone can bring the harvest, but we must plant the seed. Regardless of whether we achieve
One simple way to be intentional in our marriages is to make a point of sitting down with our husbands to ask them in which areas they would like to have input before we proceed. Grocery shopping? Work hours? School choices? Potty training? The answer will be different for every marriage. (And if you’ve already made a habit of “doing your own thing”
Shaun and I have had a once-a-week “date night” our entire marriage.
I don’t want to wake up one day, when my kids are married with children of their own, and realize I no longer recognize the man next to me in bed. Not only that, but I want to model for my children that they cannot (should not!) take the place of the one human to whom I pledged my lifelong love, loyalty, and passion. Doing so would be a great disservice to my own marriage and to their future spouses.
when it isn’t necessary. When I pitch in to help (very slowly and methodically) chop vegetables while Abbie cooks, or she hands me tools while I repair a sink, we are establishing a practice of doing life together rather than separately.
All too often, we can fall into a rhythm of daily life without truly connecting. It’s a form of passivity that leaves us vulnerable to getting so caught up in a goal or work, or another relationship (even our kids), that we allow it to draw our affections away from our spouse. We may ultimately find ourselves escaping—pursuing that interest to the point that we resent our spouse for “keeping us” from it.
And how do I know this? Because of my own struggles at times to adjust to the role of new mama. And because of the frequent messages I receive, saying things like “I’ve wanted to be a mother my whole life. And it didn’t come easily. We tried for years. But now that it’s here, I find myself running from the struggles because I had no idea how much selfishness I would have to confront when I finally got the one thing in the world I yearned for most.”
It’s good to pay attention and be a proactive proponent for our children’s health and emotional well-being. But obsessing over whether their behavior fits a developmental box produces more stress than peace, which inevitably spills over into our husband’s and children’s lives as well.
chapter, and Shaun and I both agree that one of the easiest noes we have ever chosen is restricting our children’s access to social media. They understand—both because they’ve witnessed it and because we have freely discussed it with them—the difference between the work I do on social media and the time suck that is idly spending hours a day on a variety of apps whose primary end is to distract our minds, capture our hearts, and fill our souls with discontentment, lust, and envy. (Sidenote: the book 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You discusses at length this idea of using smartphones as tools
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that point, our goal is to have lavished them with so many yeses to good alternatives that time spent alone on screens pales in comparison to evenings filled with Nertz (only the best card game there is), ping-pong tournaments, s’mores on the back patio, games of Risk and Bananagrams, movies on our DIY big screen, chess matches, reading aloud together (yes, my teens still love this), volleyball in the front yard, charades, and—gasp!—even long conversations about whatever strikes their fancy.
How would viewing my teen as a future peer (and hopefully sister or brother in Christ)—and taking responsibility for the influence I have on them—change my treatment of them or attitude toward them now?
when we place the concept of proving our love “by slowly ceasing to exist” beside Christ’s standard of “Thy will be done” (Matthew 6:10 KJV)—before our own interests, our own preferences, or our own passions—we see that while the former could indeed be the response to cultural conditioning, the latter is a wildly countercultural call to action that clashes with our current climate of self-obsession and self-deification.
Write out a “Mama Manifesto”—a statement of truth about what kind of mother you are (or desire to be) and why. Take your time on this. You want it to be something you can prayerfully return to on hard mothering days to remind you why the effort and sacrifice are all worth it.
