Finding Grace in Motherhood

I have a long list of topics I want to eventually blog about. Today I told Zach to “just pick one.” Funny how he totally purposefully picked finding grace in motherhood, knowing I’ve felt like a failure more than usual this week. As of right now, in this very moment, I feel the complete opposite of qualified to educate anyone about the mind eff that is motherhood. Hopefully my lengthy therapy session with ChatGPT last night gave me some good pointers that I can plagiarize here and claim as my own.

All jokes aside, being a mom is hard. But not a normal kind of hard… it’s a kind of hard that you feel in your soul. I think motherhood is the emotional version of lip plumper. Love the burn? Hurts so good? Stuff like that. And yet we go about our daily lives nonchalantly being surrounded by mothers. 1 in every 4 US citizens are actively mothering. How mind-boggling is that? So many silent battles are being fought.

I had three babies in three years, which means I currently have a daughter who’s about to turn 4, and my boys are 2 and 4 months. Three very different kids, with very different needs… that all require some part of me. Every day I try my best to meet those needs, and every day “my best” looks a little different. And regardless of how the day went, I get into my bed at night and all I can seem to focus on is how I failed.

“Ugh I should have been more patient with Nelly today. Ugh I didn’t feed Rome enough real meals today. Ugh I didn’t get to Dean fast enough today when he was crying. Ugh I felt like I was yelling all day. Ugh we watched three full movies today. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.”

Then the anxious spiraling starts…

“Are my kids happy? Do they know I love them? Am I teaching them good things? Do other people think I’m a bad mom? Am I too flooded to enjoy their childhood? Am I missing precious moments? Will Nelly hate me? Is her childhood being rushed? Will Rome feel forgotten? Did I snuggle baby Dean enough today? I know I fell short so many times today.

And then the question that sits the heaviest in my chest…

Will they forgive me?

That question specifically feels so heavy on my heart, constantly. I know I’m not enough. I know I need to be more kind in the way that I speak. I know that I need to plan more activities for them. I know that I so often let my personal feelings and inabilities bleed into the innocence of their childhood… will they forgive me anyway? Will they see my efforts and know that I was doing my best, that I wasn’t perfect, but still tried every day to be better? Will it be enough? Am I enough?

Ah, let us all dry our tears because I do indeed have some great news.

We know that we have come to this earth to experience all spectrums of mortality and to be “tested.” I quite literally hate that wording. It implies that we are being evaluated for our knowledge or our ability to do something, to see if we measure up. But the Lord doesn’t give us those kinds of tests, the kind we get in school. Instead, He sits down with us and says, “It’s okay. Let’s go through it together. Let me help you.”

We are not here to be tested. We are here to be taught.

The way God is holding my hand through motherhood is the same way He held my hand through high school, and through my mission, and through every other trying time in my life. And you know what’s extra cool? The same way my Heavenly Parents have always been there for me is the same way they’ll always be there for my kids.

My job just became really simple. Trust Him. Rely on Him. And hopefully, eventually, even when I mess up, even when I’m not enough, they’ll know which parent to turn to… because of who I turn to. Seriously the best co-parenting situation anyone could ask for.

Motherhood gets significantly harder when I remove God from my parenting plan. And it always gets significantly easier to give myself grace when I add Him back in. The strongest I’ve ever felt God’s love is when I’m consulting Him about how to best parent my babies.

You got this mama.

This is your first time too. ❤️

— Daisy