An award winning Mother

If an award-winning baker makes the best cake, doesn’t an award-winning Mother produce exceptional children? If I’m any good at this calling (that I’ve set every other ambition aside for), the result of my (literal) labor better prove that I’m good.

This is hard for every mother (and father!) I’ve met (including myself, of course). Sometimes “Mothering” feels like most of my identity! My child’s  good choice feels like an “A” on my Mom Report Card. Their suffering and sin feel like an “F”.

The stab of panic I feel when my child suffers or behaves badly is a sudden fear that I’m not good enough, not wise enough, not strong enough to guarantee my child’s health, virtue and happiness. 

I gently suggest that this is an invitation to remind myself of one huge truth: 

I am not God.

My painful instinct is actually true — I can’t control the outcomes. My kids’ stories (and mine) are being written and guided by God.

And that’s good news … if God is good. 

What kind of God is he? He’s the kind who understands the pain of seeing his own son slandered, rejected, and finally, unjustly executed. He knows the heartache of bad outcomes for his child. But where we are limited and ignorant, he is all-powerful, all-knowing, and merciful beyond what makes any sense to us. Jesus, choosing to absorb our weakness and be executed for our faults, has no greater joy than keeping company with us, even as we are pretty shoddy parents sometimes. Which sets me free just to enjoy my kids, do what seems wise as far as I’m able, and let them also be pretty shoddy people sometimes. It’s not my responsibility to fear for them.

My job is to be loved and cared for by this unreasonably loving God. I’m not going to be an “award-winning Mother”, earning a big A on my report card, because this isn’t a competition, and I’m not being graded! Let’s lift our eyes from the chaos of grade-chasing  to Jesus who is calm and pleased with us, and is not keeping score. You, and your kids, are in his loving hands. And if there is any evaluation that matters, it’s God deeming you “worth dying for.”