The Good Mom

A sweet friend from college suggested a book on her facebook page a while back, and I decided to put it on my list of books to read this year. It's called Grace for the Good Girl by Emily P. Freeman, and it's about letting go of the try-hard life. I was finally able to read a couple of chapters this morning and just HAD to share an excerpt. It's like she read my mind.

The Good Mom

The life of a young mother can be a very dark place to live. People don't really talk about that at baby showers. Those early days are filled with doubt, fear, worry and lots of epic failures. Pregnancy brought with it all kinds of crazy. I felt sick all the time and quickly began to resent the loss of appetite, energy, and perceived control. From the first twinge of guilty resentment I felt during month three of that twin pregnancy, I just knew that I would never be Good Mom, no matter how much I thought I should be.

 Good Mom makes breakfast and smiles a lot. Good Mom always remembers to notice, compliment, and encourage. She is fun and funny. She plays dolls with pleasure and even makes suggestions for pretend scenarios to make the play go longer. Her patience is limitless and she never raises her voice. She wakes up early every morning and spends time with Jesus. She is consistent and kind. She makes cookies from scratch. She plays outside even when it's really hot. She builds forts with blankets in the living room. Her house is always clean, her produce is always fresh, and she has a garden with flowers and vegetables. She can sing. She makes puppets out of socks. Her kids never watch TV because they are totally satisfied to listen to the riveting, captivating stories that their Good Mom makes up. Every night.

 And then there is me. I haven't worn matching socks in three years. I pulled out nine individual socks from my drawer the other day. Nine. All different. My kids fight. A lot. They call each other the biggest insult in their kindergarten-level arsenal: baby. And they all hate to be called babies, so of course that is their first line of defense when provoked. And it makes me crazy. I have had the same butter knife in my dishwasher for two weeks. Some unidentifiable food is stuck to one side. It's just too much to wash it by hand. And? My car has ants.

With each small discouragement, be it the messy state of my house or the messy state of my heart, I feel a little more less-than, a little further from Good Mom, a little more shamed by her. She stands in my kitchen with a ladle in her hand and her Williams-Sonoma apron on, with just enough flour on her nose to prove she's been cooking but not enough to make her look foolish. And her clean, good kids cling to those apron strings while she looks at me with pity in her eyes and shakes that ladle in my general direction, telling me what a failure I've become. I feel like there is a mom I'm supposed to be but I will never, ever measure up.

....

As good girls, we subconsciously label ourselves as the strong ones, the responsible ones, the sweet ones, or the right ones. We try to stand tall and capable as the good Christian, the good wife, the good mom, and the good one. But Jesus is calling us to a deeper, truer, freer identity. All he wants is simply you - minus your good works, minus your perfect attendance, minus your politeness. When you really believe that, you may discover that all you want is Jesus, simply Jesus. Not just to get to heaven or to help you be a good person or do the right thing, but to simply love and be loved by him.

(Emphasis mine.) My favorite part is the fact that her car has ants, and you know why? Because I immediately thought to myself, "as bad as my car has been, I've never had ants." Randy Alcorn says when it comes to other human beings, "comparison is poison." There are days I think that I'm doing pretty good compared to some others I know. There are days I think all the moms I know have got it all figured out and I'm the only one struggling. And, oh the fear of being found out! That fear drives me and pushes me to try harder, do better, paint a beautiful picture of myself to show the world, but it's all an illusion. The comparison I should be making is to Jesus, the standard God has set. To see myself as I really am, broken and evil with no ability of my own. To then rest in the redemption God provided in his Son, knowing that he will finish the work he started in me not because I'm worthy but because HE is worthy, because he loves me and desires the best for me.

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear." 1 John 4:18

Oh, to be free of that image of The Good Mom, and just be me, a sinner saved by grace choosing to allow God to redeem motherhood in me.