We tend to look around at other moms and compare ourselves, thinking our children might fare better if only we were–“better”… “I don’t see how she keeps her house so clean”….”If I were only smarter”…”more creative”…”more patient”…ad infinitum.
So what makes a *good* mom? Lots of things, I think. But I’m going to step out on a limb and say that perhaps the MOST important aspect of being a mom–the nurturing kind needed to build strong, confident, healthy children–is simply BEING THERE.
A child is built with a strangely deep need for constant security, stable conditions and simple, ongoing care from the people who most deeply love him.
He might be playing blocks in the floor, but there’s a comfort knowing mom is in the next room if he needs her. He has a myriad of needs in a day–small to us, maybe, but gigantic to him. Bumps and bruises, potty issues, “problems” to solve, things to learn, expressions to find, and he is feeling around with every fiber of his being for the one, constant motion in his life that will walk beside him through these monumental stages.
There are so many mysterious, supernatural workings going on under the surface of daily life–things we just have to trust, believing God is using our faithfulness in the small things to bring about His monumental revelations.
So, relax! And more importantly, instead of your efforts to BE something else, just focus on being available. Just being there feels so little, so unimportant, but think again! It’s really the biggest thing you do all day. Be there in the moments of your children–be a smile, a hug, a firm hand, a light, an ear, a help, a dictionary–all those things are building strong little people. Your loving presence is the steel that will hold them together.
22 comments
Awesome post! Thanks, I needed that! I’ve been a reader of your blog for over a year now and enjoy it so much- God bless you richly for being a servant to Mommys!
This is so true. My two daughters are first time mums and I am seeing it so much more clearly than when I was actually at that stage. How the little guys follow them with their eyes even when they are happily occupied or with some else. It is so special and so important just to be there.
I don’t have children in my life, but I felt this post was very encouraging to all Christian moms out there in Blog Land. “Being there” does sound SO “simple” and “unimportant,” but I think back to when I worked in childcare – of all the children whose moms (and dads) “weren’t there” – where they were shuffled to various child care teachers all day long – missing mom, missing dad, missing home, missing that special one-on-one attention that children simply can’t get in childcare. So yes, “being there” is VERY important!
Thank you, Kelly, for an extremely inspiring post!
Thanks for the uplift!
My mom was always working when I grew up, so when she was able to do a maternity leave when my little sister was born…. I will never forget the feeling I had coming home from school to my mom just being there. Hanging around. It was almost an ache…. I wanted it to continue.
An appropriate word at an appropriate time. The older my kids get, the less I feel like they need me. Just to know that “my presence” is enough, is such an encouragement!
A Mom that provides a loving and kind environment that’s clean as well as organized, giving instruction and demonstrating godly principles, teaching one’s children right from wrong and gently leading the children to the Lord is showing an example to be copied.
To me this is the most important thing a Mother can do.
My oldest “baby” turned 22 today and is moving back home before shipping out to the U. S. Air Force. I’m very proud of him today.
Thanks for that. Keep on listening to God…He surely loves to work through you to speak to others. Blessings to you.
hi Kelly, thanks for this. I have a question for you though… I want to let the Lord plan my family but I have such a heart for those who don’t have a home or mom that is “there for them”. There are over 150,000 orphans just in America that so badly want someone to call mom and dad… Do you ever think about them? I don’t understand that if the Lord is the one who opens and closes the womb why would He open the womb of women who do drugs while pregnant forever damaging their children and mothers who leave the children for dead… I think about this often… I thought you would be a great sister in the Lord to ask what you thought…
Katie, I have two, soon to be three children and my husband and I want to adopt. Nice to know others who have a heart for these children as well.
Katie,
I replied to your comment but it wouldn’t post it ??? I’m trying again…
Yes I do think of the tragedy you mentioned often. I grew up with a house full of children who were unwanted and/or abused by their parents. (My parents ran a children’s home.)
I asked myself the same question. I don’t know the answer. We could ask ourselves why horrible things happen to godly people, or anyone at all–it’s like Dr. Baucham said, the question isn’t “why do bad things happen” but “why does He allow anything good at all?”
I know somehow it all fits into his master plan–the one we don’t understand but must trust. In the mean time, we are called to “trust and obey”. That’s all we can do.
I love adoption and I think some are called to adopt, while others may be called to financially/physically assist them.
That’s the best answer I can give…if you want to call it an answer 😉
Yes, everything fits into a master plan that we don’t understand. Sigh.
Why does He allow anything good at all? That’s the loving God you worship? Doesn’t that seem odd and somehow…well…abusive?
Is this really a Christian viewpoint?
MOD,
Yes, that’s the loving God–hte One who doesn’t owe us anything and yet continually pours out His abundant grace…who is so holy He cannot look on sin, and yet because of the blood of His Son who paid the price for sin, considers us spotless before Him.
That God is “longsuffering, desiring that none should perish” when we really all deserve no mercy.
I’m overwhelmed at this loving God…the God who gives us each breath we take–and everything else we don’t deserve.
“That’s the loving God you worship? Doesn’t that seem odd and somehow…well…abusive?”
Mother of Dog,
You are asking a very good question. We ALL had to ask that question ourselves. We all have to come to terms with who God is and “why”. Even the Biblical prophets of the Old Testament asked it. (Habakkuk, Job, Jeremiah)
However Let me give a little scenario.
You call God abusive. But do you not admit the hypocrisy of one who says that it’s ok for a woman to choose death for her unborn child, yet slanders a God who allows death? One who thinks this way has in her mind boxed God in to fit her own self imposed (or culturally imposed) views of morality. What defines morality if one doesn’t believe or trust in a lawgiver?
God is holy and God is the author. (Holiness is not to be confused with man’s self-imagined morality.. think of that cannibal who thinks it is ok to eat another person… think of the horrible Holocaust).
When there is an Author, there is a Script. When you understand the story, you understand the discord. God said “obey me”, but when we who turn our backs on God, ***discord*** breaks out. Sin mars and bruises… even the innocent. Yes, sin is the problem.
The human heart is fallen; and regeneration through Jesus Christ is the ONLY WAY to redemption. John 14:6
God has made us for Himself (worship), and our hearts are restless until we find Him. Jesus Christ is not competing with anyone; He is the only ONE who offers freedom and a personal relationship. No other religion offers this type of salvation. All others are based on personal merit (but how can you know if you have ever or will ever *do* enough? How can one ever have peace?). Christ offers forgiveness and salvation as a free gift. The only way to peace is complete forgiveness of sin (Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith [2] into this grace in which we stand, and we [3] rejoice [4] in hope of the glory of God. 3 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Won’t you accept His love for you?
It was God that put reproduction in order. He calls this good. THEN came the fallen nature of mankind and people could live corrupt lives. People have free will to sin, live poorly, live corrupt lifestyles. The babies are innocent, but the ones reproducing in this fallen world can sin left and right, because we’re not puppets. Sad, but not everybody knows there’s a more excellent way.
God desires that none should perish, but sometimes people do.
I’d like to hear the rest of Dr. Baucham’s sermon (if that’s where he said it) where he says why does God allow anything good at all.
Is this the angle he’s using to make a point that God is good and then go onto explain?
What I’ve learned is that GOD is a GIVER and He’s a rewarder to them who deligently seek Him.
John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He GAVE His only begotten Son, that whosoever BELIEVES IN HIM should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Jeremiah 29:11 says, For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
“So, relax! And more importantly, instead of your efforts to BE something else, just focus on being available.”
Thanks for the great reminder. I tend to be one of those people that God’s working on in the area of pride. Not that I think I’m so great but I have a tendency to see my faults constantly (not in an Eeyore type of way – just in wishing I kept my house cleaner, was better with time management, etc) – which truly is pride because it comes from a sinful desire for perfection. Only God is perfect and He will work through our weaknesses. Thank you for the great encouragement to focus on being available rather than being _____ (fill in the blank). It is easy to spend all day with our kids (or any loved one for that matter) and yet not really be there.
Thanks again.
This post makes my heart leap. It is so true. Just ‘be’.
This is beautiful, Kelly. And vital.
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Major thankies for the article post.Really looking forward to read more. Keep writing.