Victory vs defeat

We all have our days of feeling defeat, but for about 4 or 5 months that is how I was feeling...just defeated!  My oldest is my largest challenge.  Every day he gives me a run for my money and when Alex was born he had a very hard transition.  I had horrible baby blues and all my friends who had babies around that time seemed like they had it together.  I felt like 'maybe I am not cut out for this mom gig'?!  It was a daily struggle.  I would tell myself on a daily basis 'I love being a mom...I am a great mom'.  Yes, I would confess it even if I didn't believe it!  I wasn't sure how to handle two kids and a husband who works from sun up to sun down 6 days a week with no family here.  I am not one to talk about my problems, so on the outside my life looked great.  Unless you spent some time with me, you wouldn't know that I was having these daily struggles. 

Parenting doesn't come with a step by step manual that tells parents what to do in what situation.  I was looking everywhere to find answers on how to discipline my son.  He would act out for attention and it just continued to get worse.  Everyone had an opinion and I asked, listened, and applied.  Spank, don't spank, quiet time, etc.  You name it, I was told it.  I applied the majority of it too...I would get new advice and add it to what I was already doing.  It was a daily struggle and battle to discipline my son.  I got to the point that I stopped....I just stopped everything.  For a couple months I just didn't do anything.  I was so lost in my journey of parenting and had no idea where to go from point A to point B.  After talking to my husband one night in tears, I realized that I had been defeated (for the time).  I was getting kicked while I was down and everyone around me could tell.  I would put a smile on my face at church and pretend that life was great because isn't that what your supposed to do...life is supposed to be perfect and we never have struggles...so NOT TRUE!!  Once I realized I had gone to everyone but the one who trusted me with my Noah then my eyes were opened.

I got a new Bible...its called God's wisdom for mom's, the book Wild at Heart so I could somehow understand this little boy and how he is wired, and started asking the Lord for guidance and grace in everything that had happened the last few months.  It was night and day when I realized that I was made to be Noah's mom.  God molded him, wrote a book about him, and then trusted me with him to guide him to live out his destiny.  The amazing thing about God is that He is standing there waiting for us to lean on Him and the second we start to use Him and allow Him to guide us in every area of our life His grace sets in and the puzzle starts to fit.  Does that make sense?

Once I chose to get victory in the area of being a mom and remembered that Noah is my son and I am equipped to teach him, discipline him, guide him, love him, train him, and plant little seeds of God's love in his heart it was game on.  I am rising to the challenge.  I am seeing fruit from the work I am putting in at home.  It is a daily effort and daily leaning not on myself but on the Holy Spirit and knowing that my path is made straight because I choose to rely on the Lord for everything.  I am far from perfect; I am not the perfect mom, wife, daughter, sister, and friend, but I pray that I can give as much love and grace to the people in my life as God has given me.  A daily question asked in my house is 'how would Jesus act?'

How would Jesus act mom?  Here is my four years old answer after I asked him what Jesus would do.  He had said some things that were not kind earlier that morning and then said He wasn't going to share with his friend and not play with his sister.  So here is the response:  'Mom, Jesus would share with my friend and He would give my sister a hug because He loves us'.  Kids understand and are thirsty to hear the word of God and I am doing my best to plant seeds of love, forgiveness, grace, kind hearted, and a heart after God.  I am not the best parent, but am learning along the way.  I can say that I will not be defeated for as long as I was again and when I feel defeated, I can read this and remind myself I was made to be these babies mom!! 

I love being a mom!