Where Did I Fail as a Mom?

If you are a mom of young children and even adult children, the truth is....you have asked yourself this same question. And probably more than once.

Your child makes bad choices and you think to yourself, "where did I go wrong?"

We had more control over them as toddlers. Or so we thought. Your toddler makes a bad choice, then the consequences matched the offense. And viola a changed behavior!

Not so much with adolescent and adult children. I mean how do you stick a fourteen, sixteen, and twenty year old in time out? Or drive them over to another church families home to return a stolen toy and apologize for being sneaky? Yes, that actually happened when one of my boys was 7 years old. It was more painful for me than him. That tells you a lot about me. Yuck!

Now that they are older I am finding that it is harder to reign in a wayward heart. I seem to forget that I was fourteen, sixteen, and twenty at one point and I was wayward too. I mean if I am honest, I am wayward today. My stubborn heart wants what it wants and NOW!

Don't we all get off the path sometimes?

This morning as I was in the shower I was having one of those moments where I was just berating myself. Thoughts like..."you should have made all of them go to church camp. You should have never given them a phone. You shouldn't have put a TV in their rooms. You should have kept reading the Bible to them at night before they went to bed. You should have demanded that they get in a Bible study. You should have created community with other families with children their age....." On and on. The darts kept coming and piercing my already fragile heart.

Until all of a sudden I remembered a word I read in my quiet time just hours before.

"I have surely seen the affliction of my people...I am aware of their suffering...I have come down to deliver them...I have seen the oppression..." Exodus 3:7,8

This was God speaking to Moses but it applies today.

WE HAVE ONE WHO MAKES ALL THINGS RIGHT.

And his name is Jesus!

Even on my BEST MOM DAYS, I am a sinner....I can never save myself...I am an absolute moral and spiritual failure without Jesus.

If I am going to take God at his word, then I must believe that HE SEES, and HE DELIVERS...and "HE WILL BRING THEM UP from that land to a land flowing with milk and honey." He is in the business of moving us from oppression to flourishing, from death to life, from stoney stubborn hearts to a tender responsive heart. A new way of doing things...His spirit in us.

He does it regardless if I send them to a church camp or not, or if they read the Bible before they go to bed or not.

Do you believe God is sovereign? Do you believe He is able to fill in the gaps? Do you believe that nothing can thwart His plan?

Then let Him take the burden of being the BEST MOM off your shoulders. Let His hands take the basket of approval from you. Call to Him and He will rescue you and answer you and give you His spirit like a mighty rushing water over you!!

I relieved his shoulder of the burden,

His hands were freed from the basket.

You called in trouble, and I rescued you;

I answered you in the hiding place of thunder;

I proved you at the waters of Meribah.

Psalm 81:6-7

This is what I felt this morning as I stood in the shower. A mighty rushing water over me. His life sacrificed for me. His spirit poured over me...Not accusing but rescuing!

I may do things a million different ways than other moms. But I can trust that my personality, my strengths and weaknesses, my personal story, my bruises, my scars...are all being used to reach the heart of these three sweet boys God has placed in my life.

Don't be the BEST MOM!

Be the Mom God has created you to be.

Today I release my boys! Don't be the BEST BOYS!

Be the boys God has created you to be!

True Beauty a Hot Bath and Jazz

God created us multifaceted. We are created with body, mind, and spirit. (physical, psychological/emotional, and spiritual). I will be the first to tell you that I haven't thought much of body and mind when it comes to spiritual growth. But over the years of discipling women, I have wrestled with the discipleship process when it comes to things like feelings of depression or feelings of meaninglessness or not purpose.

When I would meet with women and they would share that they were struggling with depression or despair, I tried to come at it from the spiritual plane. I am not saying that the spritual won't heal the mind. God's Word is powerful and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy, 3:26-17)

But sometimes, as Tim Keller says in his podcast titled The Still Small Voice, "you don't need prayer. You certainly don't need a lecture. Sometimes you certainly don't need a sermon. Sometimes you need a walk at the sea, and a meal at a great restaurant, and to sleep in."

God started there with Elijah (1 Kings 19). He feed him and gave him rest. The next thing He did was allowed Elijah to talk it out. He listened to him vent about how things weren't going as planned and he didn't know the purpose in it all.

Then....after the physical and psychological needs were met...God speaks to Elijah in a small voice. The spiritual.

BOOM! Mind blowing for me. As a women who LOVES discipleship and sharing God's word, I was blown away by this concept that we were created multifaceted so God deals with us with a multifaceted approach.

So what does that mean for discipleship?

It means I need to change my view and my approach to follow God's example of how He deals with His people.

Not to mention, it means FREEDOM! As one who struggles off and on with feelings of despair and meaninglessness, this was FREEDOM!

Sometimes I need a spa day. I need a long hot bath with some wonderful smelling essential oils, and soft jazz playing in the background to clear my mind. For some reason this never seemed spiritual until now.

I have discipled women for over 20 years and I hate to admit that most of my advice was...read your Bible more, pray harder, do more spiritual practices, and stop the destructive behavior. It was always in a very loving and caring way, of course, but I don't think I ever told anyone that they just needed to walk by the sea and eat a good meal and rest. I mean that goes against our very culture. We are a do more, have more, be more society. To stop, eat, and rest is NOT the American way. And unfortunately it is not the Christian way in most circles either. I mean Elijah spent 40 days seeking the Lord. When is the last time you spent 40 days just seeking God's face? Or told someone to take 40 days to see the face of the Lord?

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"When a worldview reduces everything to the physical, reduces everything to the spiritual, reduces everything to the psychological, it's not going to deal with real problems, If you reduce everything, you're not going to deal with the complexity of reality. You're not going to really help people. But the God of the Bible never does such a thing.

Because the God of the Bible has invented everyone of those aspects of reality. And the God of the Bible is redeeming them all."

-Tim Keller

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Did you catch that?! God is redeeming body, mind, and spirit!

The very way He created you to be...a living being with appetite, desire, passion, emotion...He redeemed at the cross. The very thing Satan tried to take away from us in the garden. BOOM! Jesus goes to bat for us to get it back. Activation. Coming alive. Abundant life! All to display His glory!

In my mission to help women lead fruitful and purposeful lives, I realized that I needed to take a comprehensive approach, a wholistic view on discipleship. One that incorporates body, mind, and spirit. You may notice a new tab on the website titled "True Beauty." This will house resources for fueling and activating our mind and body. This will deal with all things physical and psychological and how we can bring that under the authority of our Creator.

True Beauty is a life lived body, mind, and spirit. It is a life cultivating ALL that God has given us. So don't neglect those long baths with smooth music and some wonderful smelling essential oils. This is probably one of the most spiritual things you can do for yourself. I give you permission!

Listen to Discovering True Beauty on the Podcast.

Join the Facebook Group for more resources

Living Your Life by Design

"But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter;

we are all the work of your hand."

Isaiah 64:8

I am on a journey of discovering exactly how we are created and what that means in relation to our purpose. If we are going to live by design, then I guess we ought to know exactly how God designed us.

So let's go back to the very beginning.

"Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." - Genesis 2:7

Let's look at a few words from this particular scripture to gain understanding. The first word is "formed." The greek word is "yatsar" which means to fashion, through the squeezing into shape.

The second word I want us to look at is "ground." The greek word is "adamah" which means earth, soil, land.

The next thing God does is breathe into his nostrils and the man became a living being. He became a person with desires, passion, appetite, emotion.

This is where Isaiah gets his analogy of a potter molding the clay. God is taking from the ground and fashioning it into something beautiful. God was actively involved in forming every aspect of your life (spiritual, physical, emotional).

"And then the Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed." - Genesis 2:8

God put man in the garden to cultivate it and keep it, to work it. God created work.

God could have continued to create. But He put man in the garden to continue what He started, to work and create. He gave him all that he needed to be fruitful (flourish), multiply (make much of Him), fill the earth full of His glory, and subdue it (mold the earth into useful and good purposes).

The intent from the very beginning is that we would take all the resources He created and bestowed upon us to make much of Him, to mold the earth into something beautiful and to create cities and societies who would glorify Him.

I was reading in my Bible app the other day and came across this quote in a reading plan called "God's Design For Your Work" by Work Matters,

"When we abide in God, put Him first and seek His wisdom, His word promises that our lives will bear abundant fruit - and we're not talking about apples here!

We're talking about transformed lives, beauty, technology, cities, industry -

about all the things that God is using to build

His kingdom and to bring Him glory."

You were created to create with your very being, your passions and desires, and flourish and create cities who worship Him with their very lives. There is an enemy who strategy is to frustrate that plan.

The Good News! God is redeeming body, mind and spirit and restoring our purpose. We weren't just saved from the curse of sin and death. But we were saved for a purpose that includes doing good works that God prepared in advance for us to do and bring Him glory as we create.

Get the Pathway Study titled Living Your Life by Design

Listen to the Podcast episode: Living Your Life by Design