Worst Mom Award: Receiving God’s Grace in Motherhood
I don’t really want to say this out loud, because I’m afraid I’ll jinx it, but I’m kind of in an easy parenting season right now. Like, on a scale of one to super hard, I’m sleeping great, feeling great, and genuinely enjoying this era of mom-ness. I don’t know if it’s because I’m comparing it to earlier years of extra-hard parenting through trauma and a special needs adoption. But, I hardly ever lose a wink of sleep, and my kids (for the most part) do what I ask them to do. They laugh a lot, are generally healthy, and play together all the time. It’s . . . almost eerie how great it is right now.
So, I find myself in this weird zone of parenting ease, which is all the more reason it felt insane to me that I lost my temper about Chipotle a couple weeks ago.
I don’t share this story to defend my behavior but to explain it. We’d just gotten home from a long trip, so there were no groceries in the house. Adding to that tragedy, I don’t have a thyroid anymore, so feeling even a little physically uncomfortable can turn to feeling really horrible really quickly. So, I was in the car, telling my husband how badly I needed a Chipotle burrito bowl in order to gain the strength and resolve I needed to grocery shop, but he thought we needed to get home first because everyone had been in the car all day. I was beside myself. I was vehement. No one has ever been more adamant about imminent Chipotle. I share this lightheartedly, but there was nothing light about my tone in the moment. I was snappy and whiny and then actually yelled at my sweet family over a mildly delayed burrito bowl.
Not long afterward, I had the Chipotle. It was delicious. I felt better. I grocery shopped. And then I drove home ashamed. Shouldn’t I have this figured out by now? My kids are easy . . . I’ve been walking with Jesus for a long time. My job is to tell other people to rest in Jesus . . . How can I get this wrong?
Somehow, in spite of my gospel knowledge and gospel experience, I forgot what the gospel meant for that moment. I, for sure, had a very real physical need, and the whole not having a thyroid thing is a hormonal nightmare, but that didn't give me license to be snappy with my family. I was discouraged by my weakness and forgot that it’s never my strength that ultimately matters anyway . . . until my girls reminded me.
I opened the garage door and went upstairs to find my daughters. Kneeling down, I told them I was sorry. I told them I was wrong and that it was not okay and that how I behaved in the car was sinful. Then I asked them to forgive me, and my 11-year-old daughter’s response took my breath away.
She smiled and said, “Mommy, of course we forgive you! You forgive us all the time and we all make mistakes!”
Just like that, grace. Smiles and hugs I didn’t deserve. The gospel love I try to teach and give and show to my children was poured out, but in an unlikely direction. The gospel flowed from my girls rather than to them.
It’s an amazing thing to grow older and see the work of God in your own life. Ephesians 2:8-9 famously says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Of course, I want to be a good mom. Like most of us, I want to be good at everything! But pursuing good mom-ness or good wife-ness or good friend-ness or good anything-ness for the sake of our own glory will crush us. But, when we see grace as a gift, we don’t feel the urge to impress but to rest. We don’t feel the pull to boast but to share what we’ve learned and felt in Jesus. When my children are gracious with my sin, I can delight, knowing that, just like the salvation I received from God, the grace I receive from my girls is not because of something I did right, but because of something he did right.
What a gift, that even in our mom-failures—even the days we shout about burrito proximity—God can be glorified in our home. My daughters are gracious, not because I am an always-happy, ever-lovely mom-of-the-year, but because gospel forgiveness is a theme in our home, and when one of us goes nuts over something like a burrito bowl, the rest of us can say, “You are loved! I’ve been forgiven of so much—of course I can forgive!”
“Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:12-13).
I’m the worst mom. And so are you. We are all the worst, but we are so loved and redeemed and so free from the shame of our failures. Isn’t that incredible? To my delight, the gospel is true. I trusted Jesus as my Savior so long ago and hoped with all my might that he was everything he says he is. As I first started studying him in the pages of the Bible, my expectations were all future-tense—a someday peace, a far-off joy, a by-the-skin-of-my-teeth approval from a God too pure to love me. Many years later now I can say, “Wow. He’s actually even better than my highest hopes.”
I’ve found that Jesus isn’t just my hope for someday; he’s my hope for right now. Right now as I type, and right now as you read. He was my hope on the days when parenting felt messy and exhausting and impossible, and he’s still my hope here in the sweet-spot-years, when life is less tiring, but just as heartbreaking and unsteady as ever. Jesus is steady. Jesus doesn’t get hangry. He sympathizes with our pain and exhaustion, and he reminds us sometimes through our own little ones—we are forgiven and loved.
We look to Jesus and find we are loved. We look to him, and he does good. We attempt to surrender, and he pours out his blessing. Our best days are because of his Spirit working through us, and our worst days are covered by his blood. What a gift. What a joy. I think I’ll celebrate with a burrito bowl.
