Do Good Moms Feel Frustrated

Your grace abounds in deepest waters
Your sovereign hand
Will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You never fail
And You won't start now

And I will call upon Your Name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours
And You are mine

Hillsong United

     Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard this song at church lately.  It's kind of having a moment, and there are about a million blog posts about why we should or shouldn't sing it.  This is not one of those.  This is a post born of a busy morning and a fussy baby.

     Davis is really a very good baby...but he has his moments.  Don't we all?  Yesterday I decided bottles were no more (so this is mostly my fault anyway).  He woke up, got breakfast and a cup, and unleashed his inner Allyson.  He screamed for the cup only to throw it on the floor.  A few times it got hung on the edge of his chair, so he screamed until he could loosen it...and throw it.

This is not a big deal!

     I know full well that this is not a stressful morning.  I should have picked up the cup, put it away, and let Davis finish his banana in peace.  

I didn't.

     I let myself get to thinking that he wasn't ever going to take a cup.  He was going to be underweight at his next appointment.  He was going to feel hungry and yucky and act ugly at school (and then what would people think of me?!).  Furthermore, why wouldn't he eat a better meal and stay full longer?  Why haven't I switched him to whole milk yet?  Do good moms know when the right time to do that is?  Do good moms feel frustrated?  Do good moms leave pacis and lovies and their sunglasses in the house and have to turn the car off and on three times to go back into the house?

I'm asking for a friend...that's never happened to me...

     I love Davis more than I could ever express, but babies can break you.  Let me reiterate that yesterday morning should not have been stressful.  The events really weren't.  The lie was.

A hectic morning means you're a bad mom.

Why didn't you have everything together early?  You're lazy.

You're going to be late.  You'll have a bad day.  Bad day = failure.

You're not really good at this.  You'll never get it together.

     Maybe I'm crazy (scratch that maybe), but the truth is that the enemy knows my weaknesses.  He knew that a hectic morning was the perfect time to whisper lies.  He knew that those lies would hurt.  He knew where to sow fear and anxiety and resentment.  

Motherhood is deep water, y'all.

      My heart wants to do what is best for Davis every minute.  I have such a hard time separating my actions from his behavior.  It's so easy to think that every time he's fussy it's my fault.  Every unfinished bottle or meal is my fault.  Every time he's not perfect, it's my fault.  The lies and the fear and the anxiety are deep.

But that depth is where His Grace abounds!
He meets us there.

     He is Grace.  He establishes us and affirms us and upholds us through busy mornings and the enemy's lies.  He speaks His Truth in the face of the enemy even when we can't.  He doesn't magnify our failures and our struggles.

     The truth is that is wouldn't matter if I had a perfect house or a perfect baby or a perfect family or a perfect life.  My sufficiency can never come from myself.  2 Corinthians 3:5 (ESV) speaks clearly.

Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God.

     I had a great morning today.  I was ready and dressed and had the bed made early...but Davis didn't take his cup.  My sufficiency wasn't from the made bed or the fact that my eyeliner matched on both eyes today.  My sufficiency comes from Jesus only.  He quiets the lies.  He quiets my heart.


Because no post is complete without a picture.

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