Moms, Give Yourselves Grace

If you are like me, you may look back on one of your not-so-perfect mommy days and be tempted to feel discouraged. You may think about the times you yelled at your kids or the patience you failed to show or the time you spent cleaning instead of playing with them, etc. But instead of being discouraged, which the enemy wants, be encouraged in your spirit by the Holy Spirit of God! Don't focus only on what you did wrong. God forgives you, so forgive yourself! God constantly shows you grace, so who are you to withhold grace from yourself as a mom? No mom is perfect--no matter what her social media displays.

Tomorrow is a new day, and God's mercy is new every morning! So look back on today and see what you can learn from your mistakes. Pray over those things and ask God to help you to improve tomorrow. God loves to answer prayers according to His will, and it is His will for you to be an awesome mother to the children He has entrusted to you. He did not give you this family so that you would just keep messing up the same way every day. He is using this time and season in your life to make you more like Jesus. Jesus was always perfectly patient. He always welcomed the little children. 

You may be trying to do too much, even within your household. For example, don't ask me why, but I decided to make pizza from scratch today. It was fast-rising yeast, so it was not supposed to take long... but several hours later, the pizza looked and smelled divine. It tasted good, but did my kids care that it was homemade? NOPE! Would they have been just as happy with Little Caesar's? YEP! Would they have preferred me to spend the afternoon playing hide-and-seek with them instead of cooking and cleaning and hollering? NO BRAINER!

Give yourself grace! You had good intentions. Everything you do (or 99% of what you do) is for your family. They are why you try to look good, cook well, maintain order in your home, stay organized, etc.  Because of your good intentions and your perfectionism, you try to be Martha Stewart and Jillian Michaels and Rachel Ray all at the same time. Your family may not tell you that they appreciate your dinners and how you ensure they never run out of clean socks and how you drive them all over town for soccer/ballet/piano/Boy Scouts/birthday parties and how you save enough money to take them on vacation and how you lose sleep to keep your home running smoothly. But you still do it every day, hoping for but not expecting a "thank you." Look at everything you do for everyone in your life except yourself, and give yourself a pat on the back and a big dose of GRACE when you mess up. God sees all that you do, and if you are doing it for Him, He will bless and reward you.