When Moms Fear Failure

Oh, mamas. How many of us are afraid that if we don’t do everything well enough, things (or people) will fail and we will be at fault?

Anything that keeps us in a grip of fear over our own performance becomes an idol.

We fear our kids not loving the Lord, and the thought makes our hearts stop. We fear not being the “perfect” wife, and causing our marriages to struggle or fail.

What about knowing that because of Christ, we are safe even if we or our loved ones were to mess up? We strive so hard we make life hard.

We deny needs because owning them shatters our fantasy bubble. We refuse reality because we base our identity on the goodness of ourselves rather than God’s goodness toward us.

Anytime we need something to prove our worth, we do not see our value.

Anytime we need something to prove our competence, we are not truly confident.

Anytime we get our sense of worth from things around us flowing well, we are not truly whole. We can not gain true identity from ourselves or others (even our husbands or kids), but from Christ’s love and grace for all of us.

Living this way will enable us to give love and grace to others as well. We can only give what we first receive.

We will never be at rest if we think our rest is contingent on something or someone else—even if  God does want us to have that good thing.

We need to let go of our fear, our works, our idols—and worship the God Who loves us even if we were to fail drastically. Only then will our life be graced with true peace and the resulting good fruit.

Today, we get to cease striving so hard for the good thing we want, and sink into Goodness Himself. Life will become a flow of peace, a grace given, a rest earned by Christ.

When our families are no longer our greatest life, we are able to extend True Life to our families.

“It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep.” Psalm 127:2

Allow the Lord to give you, His beloved, sleep!