FACT: If your children cant read by age four there is a 95% chance they will end up homeless and on drugs.
FACT: If your children eat any processed food there is an 85% chance they will contract a rare, most likely incurable disease, by age 12.
FACT: If youre not up at dawn reading the Bible to your children, you are most likely a pagan caught in the clutches of witchcraft.
FACT: If your children watch more than 10 minutes of television a day there is 75% chance they will end up in a violent street gang by age 17.
Obviously, the facts listed above are not true (at least, I dont think they are). But, Ive noticed that the Internet has made it much easier for people, and moms in particular, to compare themselves to each other. Now, just to be clear, this is not a post against mom blogs, or whatever theyre called. If you write a mom blog, thats cool with me. This is a post to encourage the moms who tend to freak out and feel like complete failures when they read the mom blogs and mom Facebook posts.
Moms, Jesus wants you to chill out about being a mom. You dont have to make homemade bread to be a faithful mom. You dont have to sew you childrens clothing to be a faithful mom. You dont have to coupon, buy all organic produce, keep a journal, scrapbook, plant a garden, or make your own babyfood to be a faithful mom. Theres nothing wrong with these things, but theyre also not in your biblical job description.
Your job description is as follows:
■Love God. This simply means finding some time during the day to meet with the Lord. It doesnt have to be before all the kids are awake. It doesnt have to be in the pre-dawn stillness. Your job is to love God. How you make that happen can look a million different ways.
■Love your husband (unless youre a single mom, of course). Your second job is to love and serve your husband. Husbands are to do the same for their wives, but thats for a different post. If your husband really likes homemade bread, maybe you could make it for him. But dont make homemade bread simply because you see other moms posting pictures of their homemade bread on Facebook.
■Love your kids. Your calling as mom is to love your kids and teach them to follow the Lord. They dont need to know Latin by age six. If they do, more power to you. But thats a bonus, not part of the job description. Your job is simply to love your kids with all your exhausted heart, and to teach them to love Jesus. Thats a high calling. Dont go throwing in other, extraneous things to make your life more difficult. If you want to teach your kids to sew, great. But dont be crushed by guilt if your kids arent making stylish blazers by the age of 10.
Moms, Jesus want you to rest in him. He wants you to chill out. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. Dont compare yourself to other moms. Dont try to be something God hasnt called you to be. If the mom blogs are making you feel guilty, stop reading them. Be faithful to what he has truly called you to do, and know that he is pleased with you. When your kids are resting, dont feel guilty about watching an episode of Lost, or whatever your favorite show may happen to be.
Love God, love your husband, love your kids. Keep it simple and chill out.
