Gaps & Motherhood Mistakes

Written April 2020; Edited by: Brie Cooley

Parenting mistakes: Yelling. Snappy responses instead of gentle words. Begrudgingly meeting needs for my family instead of serving them joyfully. Later wallowing in guilt over what I didn’t do right, promising myself that I will do better tomorrow. Never being able to close the “gap” between who I am and who I want to be for my family. The struggle! My head knows that perfection doesn’t exist, but my heart continues to strive for it. Why?

          The pressure to get it all right is heavy. The sunken feeling of disappointment lies on my chest as I realize that I am not the heroic woman  I had envisioned myself being. I thought I was going to be the gentle one who always gives a kind response, knows the best advice, and has a home cooked meal ready every afternoon. I was supposed to work tirelessly to complete the work in my home, staying up hours after my kids go to sleep to humbly serve them in the quiet night hours. Oh, and also work outside of the home. I was never going to get snippy with my family either. I was supposed to be so humble in giving up my own life to meet every demand… That idea didn’t take long to come crashing down!

Culture molds us to believe that as women, it is our responsibility to meet everyone’s needs around us. Even Christian culture sells this idea that we are to maintain this image of selflessness, will power, and strength in the name of Jesus. It tries to tell us that always being exhausted from pouring ourselves out to our loved ones is normal. Chaos becomes intertwined with the truth. Our goal changes from following God to chasing the image we try to build for ourselves to impress upon our families that we are humble servants who selflessly sacrifice–that we are worthy to be remembered and praised!

We could call it “people-pleasing” or having “co-dependent traits.” Striving to earn acceptance. Pride. Self-idolatry. Being a “fixer.” Control freak. Whatever name you want to give the “gap” in your life, it refers to bondage that can hold your heart captive. God invites us out of that captivity!

I am ecstatic to be learning from God about “gaps.” When I refer to a gap, I mean the space that lies between what I can offer others and the limitations of what I can’t—the distance that is between my weaknesses and my strengths.

I believe that God invites us to view life from a different perspective. One afternoon after striving so hard to be and do more, I laid down for a nap, completely exhausted, as my youngest was asleep. As silly as this sounds, I asked God to please just talk to me while I was asleep because I simply did not have any more energy to connect with Him even though I knew I needed to. When I got into the “twilight” sleep, I began to hear the still, small voice in my mind tell me about this marvelous “gap.”

What God told me is that there will always be a gap between parent and child—or any relationship for that matter. It’s the space where ONLY God Himself can offer what my children need and desire. There are needs that I cannot meet AND are not my responsibility to meet.

What He said was this: There will always be room for improvement on a parent’s behalf—missed opportunity to smile instead of scold; to offer mercy instead of shaming feedback; to give grace rather than hold back; missed opportunities to be present with the kids when they try to share their hearts instead of being distracted by the to do list or phone. As parents, we won’t always give the right words of encouragement, know the best advice to give, or have the energy or finances to be able to give them what they wish they could get from us every time.

But what we can do is point them to the One who sits in this gap and offers all of this and much more! We can encourage them to listen for God’s voice above all others. We can humbly admit that we can’t meet all of their needs and that sometimes we are wrong. Even more, we can allow them to witness us seeking God’s voice above all the other ones—letting them in close enough to see that God is the One who provides for our needs, even when other people let us down!

Let’s back up and admit that the celebrated image of womanhood IS rather inviting at first. Before we know better, we get to thinking that we are striving for a good cause and that we are doing great things for the Kingdom of God by maintaining an outer image of a sacrificial, selfless Christian woman. When we work toward this, we feel that we are getting closer and closer to being the hero!

We ask God to help us be more and more, ignoring the fact that this contradicts His agenda, which is for us to become less, to move out of the way, and allow Him to be the “more” for us instead (Matt 10:39; Matt 11:29-30).

It’s seemingly such an elementary truth—that God provides for all our needs (Phil 4:19; Matt 6:31-32; Matt 7:11; Luke 12:24). Yet, the proof is in the pudding that we don’t trust Him to provide for the people we love, and we don’t trust that He accepts us as we are, with our human limitations. We don’t trust God to intervene in the action=consequence world that He graciously allowed us to have so that we could learn.

As much as our ego may not like it, our gaps actually allow other people to encounter God. Once we get over ourselves a little, we can foster trust in God’s provision and power and rest a little bit. Let’s move out of the way and in the gap of our imperfections and limitations and let God be the hero He is. We can let our children witness God’s goodness before their very eyes just by allowing them to see our imperfections while God continues to be faithful and good to us.

As a parent, I am not the end-all-know-all resource for each issue that arises for my children. I wasn’t created to be, so it’s ok. What I mean is, I am not responsible for teaching my kids everything. My children’s happiness, determination, and success are not all of my responsibility. My responsibility is to give freely what I am able while pointing them to God—the sole Provider of encouragement, joy, purpose, acceptance, and provision. We can allow them to learn to depend on God and foster a trust that God’s plans are good, beyond the disappointment that people leave us with when they don’t meet our needs.

As women, we are often hyperaware of our weak points and try to fix them ourselves. We even strive to fill in the places with our kids where our own parents missed the mark with us. Our role as parents is not to fix ourselves over night when we realize we’ve made mistakes. It is my belief that God invites us to release the weight of trying to become a better representation of Christ. He invites us to take the focus off of fixing ourselves and instead, focus on Him. He asks us to simply interact in our relationship with Him—to not only ask of Him but listen and give Him a chance to speak to our hearts. If we do this, we will automatically become a better representation of Him.

God invites us to shed the skin of heroism and let Him take the lead. We don’t have to be the rescuer or fixer any longer. We can let ourselves and others learn from their own mistakes. We can be ok with the fact that we are imperfect parents. Instead of basking in our own fading limelight we try create for ourselves, we can bask in God’s limelight because it never fades. Instead of striving to be noticed and remembered by our families, we can rest and allow God to meet our need of acceptance and purpose without trying to manipulate people to notice and affirm that for us.

God is THE resource; THE Savior; THE Provider; THE Protector; THE ultimate source of acceptance…