As we humbly acknowledge our sins and mistakes before the Lord and our families, we grow in our understanding and appreciation of gospel forgiveness.

In motherhood, God gives us the opportunity not only to give his grace to our children but also to receive it from them.

When others wound us, looking to Christ’s example and remembering the gospel helps free our hearts from bitterness and resentment.

Cultivating forgiveness in our homes is an intentional way to display the gospel to our kids.

Talking to our kids about the gospel can happen anytime, anywhere—not just during family devotions. Even the most routine parts of our days can be gospel moments.

I yelled at my daughter the other day. Not a gentle ‘Don’t do that, honey,’ kind of correction, but an angry, ‘What on earth were you thinking?’ reaction.

She, in turn, yelled at her two year old brother for making her do it, and pretty quickly there was a lot of frustration going around for a little bit of spilled sparkling water. A simple misstep halted my child’s creative idea on a nice day, and there we were, yelling at each other as if the offense merited some sort of punishment.

After we cleaned up, I thought about how quickly that moment went from fun to frenzied. Rather than parenting my children with the patience and instruction they need, I responded to a common sibling squabble like I was one of the siblings. 

If a mama speaks out of the overflow of her heart, my overflow had been speaking loud and clear, pointing to the fact that I wasn’t guarding the sources filling my heart-well.

The problem is really simple: it’s me. My heart is. My misplaced worship is. The idolatry of my time and performance is. And the way I feed these things by comparing myself to other mothers, that’s the problem.

And the way I’ve sought to fill my life with the things God tells us will not satisfy—these are the barrier between me and the mom that I want to be. As I’ve escaped to worldly influences, I’ve robbed my soul of the fellowship with my Savior that it needs, and I’ve seen firsthand the difference between the overflow of a heart filled with treasure and a heart filled with idols.

Motherhood is one way God makes his goodness tangible, and I am learning each day that to be the mom I want to be, to experience that goodness, I have to begin with a posture of humility; which is sometimes as simple as the choice between one of the many temporary comforts fighting for my affection, and repentance. Simple, pure, childlike repentance of my sin. Because we’re all in need of saving from the thing that keeps us from God and from one another.

But the best news for all of us is that grace is already there.

As mothers, we can be tempted to find our righteousness in giving our children the picture-perfect childhood, filled with super-food meals and the best education possible. Somehow we falsely believe that if we can be the ideal Proverbs 31 wife and mother, we will earn favor with God.  

Yet our hope is solely in what Christ has already done, what he accomplished for us on the cross.

Our righteousness will never come from being good enough. It comes from Christ, who granted us new life in himself and placed trust in our hearts—trust in the one atoning death that covers all our sin. Second Corinthians 5:21 tells us, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Every day, each time we fail to keep God’s perfect commands, what glorious assurance we can have.  For we know that our righteousness is not in anything that we do, but in Christ alone. When we fail, when we sin, amidst the remorse and regret, we can thank God for his commandments.  For they reveal our imperfections and lead us to the cross, our only hope of ever being counted good enough."