Grace Over Guilt

Consistency.

That’s my word for this year. I want to be consistent so that I can see progress towards reaching my goals. Hopefully this also means I’ll actually achieve said goals…

But, can I be honest for a second? There’s absolutely nothing consistent about motherhood! Nothing.

Each new milestone has a completely new and different set of rules and actions; while each new child doubles the pressure that change naturally builds. What may have worked with the first child rarely works with the second. I guess it’s nature’s way of keeping us on our toes.

Ultimately, this means I often fail when trying to apply method 1 from child 2 to child 3. As an achiever, I abhor failure. It gets under my skin and taunts me, belittles me, and makes me insecure in my ability to parent my children effectively. And after a while, failure begets guilt.

Yep, enter Mom Guilt stage left.

If you go on social media, there’s a #momfail hashtag to document the not so pleasant moments of motherhood. With this as the norm, I found myself saying out loud after failing to perform my motherly duties perfectly, “I’m such a bad mom,” or “Gosh, I suck,” or “I’m just not made for this!”

Again, negative self talk reared it’s ugly head and one day I completely broke under the mountain of lies. It was through the words of my precocious 3-year-old,

“Mommy, you’re a great Mommy.”

He didn’t care that I forgot to pack snacks for our errand runs. He didn’t care that he had to eat chicken nuggets again because I didn’t feel like preparing a 3-course meal from scratch. He had no clue that he hadn’t had a bath in 4 days. He also didn’t care that he hadn’t done a craft in 4 weeks.

“Mommy, you’re a great Mommy.”

He sees me, and he loves me… just the way I am. Imperfect, but his.

I assume that’s the way God sees us too. Imperfect, but His.

That’s why I’ve decided to choose grace over guilt. I want to live in the messy bun beauty of authenticity. It means mistakes will happen, but the same way God forgives me is how I need to forgive myself.

Guilt is the enemy’s way of breeding insecurity. But God says, “So now the case is closed. There remains no accusing voice of condemnation against those who are joined in life-union with Jesus, the Anointed One.”

One of my all-time favorite scriptures is Isaiah 54:17a (emphasis added). It says,

“But in that coming day
    no weapon turned against you will succeed.
You will silence every voice
    raised up to accuse you.”

The weapon of guilt will not succeed in the presence of grace. Gracious words and thoughts toward ourselves defeat the enemy’s attack on our security in our roles as mothers, daughters, or sisters.

We silence the voice of condemnation when we choose grace over guilt. Will you practice that with me? When the enemy attacks us with our faults, let’s remind him that the case is closed! 

If it’s grace that saves us, then it’s grace that will keep us secure when everything else about us is swirling around.

We got this.