“Your children are the greatest gift God will give to you, and their souls the heaviest responsibility He will place in your hands. Take time with them, teach them to have faith in God. Be a person in whom they can have faith. When you are old, nothing else you’ve done will have mattered as much.”
― Lisa Wingate
I may be wrong, but it seems most mothers I know struggle in this area. The demands of family life are limitless. How can we make time to care for ourselves spiritually, emotionally, or physically when it’s difficult to make it to the restroom a couple of times each day? Isn’t our husband more important? What about the kids?
As scripture says, “Consider others better than yourselves.” Yes, we need to love our husband and children more than we love ourselves. A wife and mother has an amazing privilege and responsibility to nurture, grow, and serve her family faithfully. At the same time, we will be ill-equipped to love abundantly and sacrificially if our basic needs remain unmet.
I’m not suggesting a shirking of responsibility, but instead a proper approach and balance toward life and those people God has entrusted to our care. In the words of Matthew 6:33, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.”
When God remains in his rightful position as Lord of our lives, we rely on someone with unlimited strength and wisdom. He equips us to meet the challenges of parenting head-on, filled with far more than our limited abilities. As Paul reminds us, ”
Then he [God] told me, “My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.” It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size…I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
So, then…what is the most important lesson I’ve learned about love because of parenting? To love God more. I need to be full of Christ and the only way I can do that is make him the priority in my life. Then–and only then–I will have the ability to truly love my children as they need to be loved.
Like Paul, I want to say..let Christ take over!
Action Steps
- Make time each day to set aside your weakness and pick up his strength. How? Begin by scheduling an appointment with Him each day to pray and read the Bible.
- Pray specifically for your husband and children.
- Take a break once in a while. Try to spend 15 minutes each day doing something you enjoy–reading, taking a bath, talking with a friend–and you’ll be better equipped to serve your family with a cheerful heart.