MOMMY GUILT...

Mommy guilt. You know what Im talking about.It is that ugly feeling that creeps in when youre nursing your newborn and your 4 year old is begging you to play doll house and you have no choice but to tell her no.It is those thoughts you let linger when you go into a friends house and it is sparkling clean, all their children are dressed and said hostess has even straightened her hair, and you, well your son has on his sisters shoes and you are wearing a hat to cover up your hair while your dreading going back home and cleaning the mad mess that became your living room as you tried to get out the door on time. It is the fact that when youre sitting at the park you are confident youre being judged because for 10 minutes you would rather look at facebook then join your lovely crew down the slide for the 15th time, when really no one else even noticed. It is the self inflicted feeling that you are not as pretty, as put together, or fit as this mom or that and are therefore somehow inadequate. It is the idea you allow to creep in your head that you are indeed failing when you browse pinterest and realize your home isnt decorated up to par, your children are not being fed a totally organic diet,your craft time isn't daily,isnt always kid friendly and certainly isnt always successful and all your meals are not made from scratch. It is the remorse and hours, sometimes days of guilt you feel when you know you overreacted with one of your children even after you have gone to them and made it right. It is Mommy guilt. I have had a huge awakening with this mommy guilt. I spent last Christmas worried and obsessing over getting it all right. Our crafts, our memories, our baking, the kids gifts. And you know what I realize this year? My kids don't remember much of it. They remember doing truth in the tinsel and learning about Jesus' birth, not that there were a few days we missed! They remember their elf coming to "visit them", not that their were days i plain forgot to put that sucker out. They remember baking with me, not the batch i burned. They remember opening gifts and the excitement, they could care less that i got them the perfect american girl bitty baby twins and double strollers.So this christmas Im not doing it to myself. I am making all the same memories, the same traditions, the same things we love to do a priority, but I refuse to allow that ugly guilt to peak his head in on the day it just doesnt happen. In fact I refuse to allow that Mommy guilt to rear its head in our home, our lives or my heart any more. I am not by any means a perfect momma. BUT I am the perfect Mommy for my children, because God designed both me and them to fit perfectly with one another (and their daddy) to form a family! 2 Corinthians 3:17 says "Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom". I have and am praying for God to release me from this self inflicted guilt, to renew my soul with his freedom. I know in my heart that I have freedom in Christ, that I am a new creation. Yet I allow the Devil to attack me over and over in my own mission field, my home. You see when you are mothering in guilt you aren't mothering to your highest potential. You become angrier and more frustrated easier, you will have a tendancy to just give up because you feel like you will never really figure this out anyways, you are not teaching your daughters what a confident women of Christ looks like but instead what a beaten and worn out women is, You can not live in self inflicted guilt and live to the potential you have been given in Christs freedom. My desire is to live to the potential I have in Christ. Not to be Betty Crocker or Martha Stewart. My desire is to make my children smile and giggle,to play with them, even when that means I stay up late folding laundry. My desire is to slow down, to talk to them not just at them, to listen intently to what they are telling me- because it is important. My desire is to rock my baby boy while he coos at me, for him to know he is simply the most magnificient baby even though I know there are a sink full of dishes awaiting me. I want my childrens memory of me to be of me reading Gods word, of how important that was to me more then I want their memory of me to be of my stress with house work. We have but one life. We have but one chance to Mother these little blessings God has, in his infinate grace, given us. How will you use that opportunity? I encourage you to claim to the freedom in Christ. Do not allow the Devil to play tricks in your head or with your heart. Stand firm and rely hard on Jesus, He will sustain you, He will give you the power to Mother well. And the best part is, the harder you cling to Jesus as your rock the more your children will see him radiate through!