Weakness in Motherhood

Motherhood is always challenging, but it has been particularly challenging this week.  One of my daughters woke vomiting before dawn on Monday. Most of my appointments, lists, and plans had to be cancelled for the next few days.  Though I tried to put my selfishness aside and focus on my daughter's very real and very important needs, I battled all kinds of temptations to be frustrated and upset.  

In her article "Lies Moms Should Stop Believing", Erin Davis writes: "It is easy to blame our children when days don’t go exactly as we want, but God’s truth shows us we can choose contentment in all circumstances, and that the frustrations of motherhood are actually blessings if they move us to press on in the power of Christ" (emphasis mine).

Reading this today was a much needed reminder to root myself again in the truth of 2 Corinthians 12:9-10:  "But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong." 

I don't think that this passage means that I am to enjoy the difficulties themselves, but that I can choose to rejoice because I know my loving heavenly Father is in control and is good. I may not enjoy the interrupted sleep of this week, but I can rest in His sufficient grace to carry me through. I can draw near to Christ in delight as He works powerfully in such trials of motherhood...and in greater trials that may come.

I don't necessarily ask for trials in life, but I am practicing embracing the trials as opportunities to see God at work.  He may not always change my circumstances, but He can always use the circumstances to make me more like His Son...if I let Him.

Tonight could be a night of interrupted sleep and tomorrow a day of plans tossed aside, but I can choose to rejoice in my God whose purposes are good and for my best.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Living Beyond Myself

God performed life-changing work inside me a decade ago through Beth Moore's study, Living Beyond Yourself .  Wrestling with my issue of people-pleasing brings to mind some quotes from this study: "A powerful masquerading misery-maker is living inside ourselves," but "Christ in us not only guarantees life in Heaven but also...the astounding invitation to live beyond ourselves on earth" (p. 8, emphases mine). 

My longing to "live beyond myself" has grown while reading Edward T. Welch's When People Are Big and God Is Small.  People-pleasing -- or "the fear of man" as Welch calls it -- drains true life from me, and when I give in to the fear of man, I am being controlled by what I fear others think of me (p. 13-14).  I squelch Christ's life in me and so live inside myself rather than beyond myself.  And that is miserable. 

I hit a turning point after my last post.  My longing to live beyond myself is triumphing over my longing to impress others.  I am being intentional about not giving in to the fear of man, and I am again tasting the joy of Christ living in me.  I am convinced again that the hard work of facing and fighting my fears is worth it.