Some days I want to run away.  Literally walk out my door, start running and never look back.  I have no idea where this comes from, but I'm guessing today it's from fear.  I'm afraid of what I'm doing wrong.  I'm afraid I can't do it right.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I hold my parenting very highly in my life.  It's that thing that I do not want to get to the end and realize I did a poor job at it.  I can't.  There's too much on the line.  The hard part about this is that I screw this part of my life up so often.  I'm impatient.  Self seeking.  Harsh words.  Non understanding.  Quick to anger.

Then I want to run.  Something inside of me says it would be easier to to run away than to fail.  It's false I know it.  I fight it.  It's not true.  It's satan's way of really getting me to dive more into my insecurities.  He knows I worry about failing as a parent.  It makes me shutter to think I might fail one of my kids.

I sent my kids off to school feeling like a failure.  Once again, I convinced myself that they are going to grow up and write a memoir about how awful their mom was.  Remember that time that she yelled at us for coming in the house a million times at night when we were supposed to be playing outside.  Yeah I'm a messed up adult because of it.  That's my fear.  That my parenting will ruin them.

I know when I write it that it's awful.  I'm not a bad mom.  I love my kids dearly.  I beat myself up when I have bad days.

Today I was reading God's word and begging him to change my heart.  To bring me to him and not to my own feelings.  I can sometimes get stuck feeling yucky and would rather stay there than run to God.  It's weird and gross and I have no idea why.  I read how we are to be imitators of God.  I've always loved that verse, because wow isn't that a high goal.  Imitate the maker of the Universe.  Imitate the creator of my soul.  Imitate the Heavenly Father.  Seems impossible to me.  Then I realized that it is impossible without Jesus.  He's my hope.  He is my only hope.

Romans 7 & 8 pretty much sums up my thoughts today:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.  For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.  For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

Thank you that Jesus Christ is the one that can deliver me from my ugliness.  I want to be the best parent I can be.  I want to point my kids to Jesus with all that is in me.  I want to teach them to rely on him for all of our needs.  I want them to see Jesus in me.

Today I'm realizing two things.  #1 I will screw my kids up.  My parents screwed me up.  Their parents screwed them up.  We are all screwed up!  We can't help it.

#2 Jesus is my redeemer on days when I feel as though I fail.  I will continue to strive to imitate God and be the best mom that I can be.  There is no condemnation.

If you are here, let these words from Romans resonate with your heart today.  If you don't even know what to pray, fear not because a little further God's word tells us that even when we don't know what to say the Spirit helps us in our weakness, and intercedes for us.  We're all in this together moms.

IMG_6022*Photo by Whitney Runyon

Jamie Ivey