Good News for the Perfectionist Mom

Replace the lies that highlight your imperfections with these three truths.

Have you ever felt like you’re not quite cutting it as a mom?

I’ve been there. In fact, I think every mom I know has had a moment (or maybe a few) where we’ve wondered what in the world we’re doing.

We have a large family and some of our kids have joined our family through adoption. When we brought our first child home via adoption, I remember thinking, “Do I have what it takes? Am I going to fail this child as a parent?” At night, when I rocked him in my arms and would sing him a song, I was acutely aware that my voice wasn’t the voice that he had been used to. While I held him to my chest, the beat of my heart wasn’t the heartbeat that he was used to hearing in utero. And I wondered if I’d be able to navigate the complexities of parenting a child who was separated from their first family.

One day, when confessing some of my fears with a friend, she shared with me good news, “Every mom brings her own set of inabilities and insecurities to the table. You will absolutely fail your children, but your job isn’t to be perfect. It’s to point them to a God who is!” For some reason, even though I already knew that in my head, hearing those words from a seasoned mom freed my heart from the lie that I needed to be a perfect mom.

And so today, I’m sharing three truths that highlight that good news with you.

You don’t have to be a perfect mom.

Scripture says that, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). We don’t have to pretend to get it all right, because we know that all have fallen short!

We will never be perfect moms and we don’t have to be! Rather, our one goal, is to consistently point our children to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. And by doing this, we’re showing our kids that we don’t have to earn God’s love, but rather his unconditional love covers us and invites us to pursue lives of holiness, not perfection.

Our kids need to see us repent.

But when we do make mistakes, our kids need to see us repent. When we practice repentance, we’re modeling a spiritual discipline that should be a part of every believer’s life! James 5:16 says we’re to confess our sins to one another so that we can experience healing and restoration. What a gift to be able to model this discipline within our homes and point our children to the only One who is capable of redeeming and restoring every heartache.

There is joy in relying on God in our motherhood.

And while confessing our sins and asking for forgiveness from our kids isn’t necessarily a fun experience, there is a deep-rooted joy and freedom found in relying on God to help us with the hard parts of motherhood. There is an unspeakable joy of discipling our children into living honest lives, reliant on a good and holy God who offers us forgiveness and invites us to freedom – not unattainable perfection.

And although that is good news for moms, truly it is good news for us all.