Grace in Chaos - Biblical Hope for the Hard Days of MotherhoodSample

Two little pink lines and one pregnancy test were all it took to rock your world forever.

In that moment, your entire life changed. Your visions and dreams for the future morphed before your eyes. You decided that you were going to be the best mom in the world. You were going to prepare home-cooked meals every night, listen to every fear, and patiently teach your children when they had tantrums. You were going to sing as many bedtime songs as your children desired, bake chocolate chip cookies every Saturday, and have picturesque Christmas mornings. You had big dreams for your motherhood . . . until your children arrived.

Early on, you discovered motherhood wasn’t what you expected. Maybe your baby had colic and struggled to breastfeed. Or maybe the newborn years were a dream, but the daily stress of the toddler years made your hair start turning gray. Year by year, your idyllic motherhood dreams were replaced with more difficult emotions—disappointment, sadness, frustration, and anxiety.

Sure, you still love your children more than life itself. Sure, you still want to be a good mom. But continually falling short of your motherhood ideals can make you feel like you’re moving further and further away from the kind of woman you want to be.

Thankfully, even when our realities are not living up to the big dreams we once had, there is hope. Everyone who believes in Jesus is promised not only eternal life and forgiveness of sins, but also a very present help in time of need (Psalm 46:1). And ultimately, God gives us everything we need in our daily battles (Ephesians 6:10–20). He equips us and makes us ready to honor God in the difficult moments of mothering.

We can find hope because Jesus is with us in every moment of our parenting. We are never alone. So even if our days as moms do not look like we once envisioned, we know that God is with us, and He will redeem all things for His glory and our good (Romans 8:28). Our perfectly wise Father equips us for the daily responsibility of loving and shepherding our children in the gospel. Praise God!

Questions:

1. Has motherhood been everything you dreamed that it would be? Why or why not?
2. What emotions do you struggle with the most as a mom?
3. How does it encourage you that Jesus is with you every moment of your mothering?