Tug Of War

Motherhood is a never-ending sacrifice of your time, effort, body: yourself. You are working uphill against sinful little creatures who do not like it when you push against their little selfish wills, so they have various ways of pushing back.

During the toddler years, they fall on the floor and throw a fit because you didn’t let them eat the candy they wanted. In the teen years, they question your wisdom and integrity and know just where to put in the knife. After all, none of us have been perfect, and we all have flaws, and our children tend to discover most of them.

Then there are always Job’s friends in the crowd—those people who are quite sure they know why your life is not going well and what you have done wrong to make your life such a mess. Yet Job’s friends were quite wrong! Job was being persecuted by Satan because Satan thought if a person was persecuted, he could not remain loyal to God. God had actually chosen Job as a model of integrity and faith, and Job’s friends could not have been more wrong in their statements about his demise.

So don’t pay attention to the critics. Their voices, though sometimes strong, are just part of journeying through this path of parenting and life. Let us seek instead to accept our limitations, refuel, keep going, focus on pleasing the One who is always going to be on our team—our heavenly Father, whose voice is always there to encourage.

His Promises

I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts.