We can do the tasks God has laid before us
"Only in letting go can we come to the glory of new life"
This week on Mothering Spirit
Kathryn Whitaker describes the struggle of letting our kids make mistakes:
“During a particularly excruciating season of motherhood in which one of our children was making every bad choice, I found myself on my knees in my closet, crying out to God to fix the damn thing. I called a wise friend, a few years down the road in mothering experience. She listened to me lament and cry and wonder if I was cut out for this motherhood gig. “Surely,” I told her, “I missed teaching a lesson somewhere along the way.”
She sighed gently and whispered, “Every family has a prodigal, Kathryn. Keep loving your kid.” She also reminded me that I was doing parenthood, imperfectly but with great love. We sometimes focus on the perfection part, instead of the love part. In scripture, Jesus tells us that faith, hope, and love are the foundation, but that the greatest is love. Praise the Lord he didn’t add perfection to that list.
That experienced mom’s words and encouragement gave me a glimpse into how Jesus must’ve felt as he stood atop the Mount of Olives, looking out and weeping over Jerusalem. If only our love could immediately fix the things, right? But it’s our uncompromising, never-ending, faithful love that changes the world.”
Read the whole essay here: The Greatest Gifts We Can Give Our Teens.
Karianna Frey offers a prayer for letting go as our kids grow:
Lord Jesus, through your death and resurrection,
You teach us that it is only in letting go can we come to the glory of new life.
Yet, as a parent, it is so hard to let go,
especially when it comes to our children growing up.As our children develop into the people Our Father has created them to be,
we mourn the loss of what was:
the last diaper changed,
the last nursing session,
the last bottle,
the last lullaby,
the last request to be picked up and carried.All of these things must pass away for us to see our children as You see them…
Read the rest here: A Prayer for Raising Teenagers and Young Adults.
From our sponsors
This week’s sponsor of Mothering Spirit is Be A Heart Design, a modern Christian lifestyle brand that creates beautiful products to help both adults and children grow in faith. Be sure to check out their fun new punch needle kits and beautiful new book Living the Seasons releasing this fall!
This Week’s Recommendation
Each Friday we feature more work from our writers. This week we shared an excerpt from Better Than OK: Finding Joy as a Special-Needs Parent by Kelly Mantoan:
“SMA [Spinal Muscular Atrophy] had come in and completely upheaved our life, changed it, and promised to barge back in again next cold and flu season. More steps were added to Fulton’s care; more things I couldn’t forget to do; more things to do in a day and less time for me to sit down and relax for one moment. How was I going to find the time to do all this on top of homeschooling and caring for the other four kids? And how much longer until I had to do all this new stuff with Teddy?
Rather than resent all this additional work, I tried to view it as another way of serving my son and loving him. Even when it was uncomfortable for Fulton to have a new tube placed down his nose, or breathing treatments disrupted his play time, I tried to remain calm and remember that sometimes what we need for our health, both physically and spiritually, doesn’t feel good. It wasn’t easy. I got angry, I cried, and I had embarrassingly little patience. In usual fashion I created lists and plans on how to make all these new items fit neatly into our days, with mixed results of success.
It was not in lists I found peace, but in knowing this situation was in God’s hands, not mine…”
Read the full excerpt here: Count Your Crosses: The Graces of Fortitude and Perseverance.
In Your Words
We know social media is a place where mothers of all ages and stages share from the heart about their joys and challenges. Each week we bring you a glimpse into one mother’s life—in the hopes that her words might resonate with your own story.
This week’s post comes from
(@catherinesullivanwrites on Instagram):I keep eating off of the broken plate.
“Is this a metaphor?” I ask myself warily as I place it on the counter and begin to serve myself dinner. It's visibly cracked but not completely split—perhaps a symbol for my mental state after teaching and birthing and mothering during the pandemic?“Will I ever fully recover?” I wonder as I arrange two tortillas. (Probably not.) I suppose I could throw it out—do I keep it because I am stubborn? Sentimental? Lazy? (All true.)
I add sour cream, meat, cheese. Almost every day, I pull this broken plate out of the dishwasher and stack it in the cabinet. Then, almost every night, as I am serving dinner to my family, I pull it down when it is time to serve myself.
When I set the plate full of food on the table, I look at the precious faces that surround me. Maybe it isn't a symbol of something gone wrong, but of something gone right: a family with a rhythm and a cycle, faithfully living their days out together, despite their brokenness.
If you like what you read at Mothering Spirit, we’d love if you’d share this with a friend! Maybe someone who needs encouragement in her mothering journey—or a place to pray in the midst of her busy days. Thanks for supporting our writers by sharing their work, following us on Instagram or Facebook, or supporting us on Patreon.