What Motherhood Is Teaching Me

 “What Motherhood Is Teaching Me”

I feel like this is such a cliche blog post. But my hope is that somehow, this will encourage others who are new mothers or have been mothers for a long time now.

Being a mother is I would say one of God’s greatest blessings that we get to experience on this earth. Ever since I was in high school I can remember I wanted to be a mother so badly. I remember vividly the frustrations I would have in my college years, being single, and wondering why is God not blessing me with marriage if so many people are saying that I would be a great mother? 

I felt entitled to a better life or at least what a better life looked like in my mind. I was not satisfied with where I was at. However, even now being at this stage in my life, where I am a mother, I still feel that entitlement creep in or the replay of “I deserve better” in my subconscious. 

After it’s been a long day of my daughter crying any time I put her down or walk away from her and I’m just ready to settle in at night, maybe watch a tv show with my husband and then, I hear her start to cry…again. The temptation is to think, “I worked hard today and I really don’t need this right now” or “I wish I could just shut off my brain, the crying is stressing me out”. Some of you reading this are probably thinking, she has no idea how hard things are going to get. The truth is, I really don’t. I only know from firsthand what I have gone through with my daughter thus far. However, I can be honest and say that motherhood has shown me how much I struggle with entitlement when all I am deserving of is death and hell. 

Jesus commands us to love him first above all other things in this life. He commands us to do things not only because he loves us but also because He knows that if we do follow His commands, we will bear fruit and love others better. I definitely have noticed that the days I spend studying my Bible, not distracted, and not rushed, I am much more gracious to my daughter and my husband. 

If there is another lesson that God is teaching me is that my identity is not in my child. The more I think that way, the more my daughter becomes a project and not a person. The more my daughter becomes an achievement and not a blessing. The more my daughter becomes MY daughter and not God’s. The more her milestones become daunting comparisons and not simple joys. The more I care about myself and the less I count my daughter as more significant. It is simply unloving to put your identity in anything else but Jesus. Easier said than done obviously, but this one has been hitting hard lately.

This blog post is definitely written in Hannah-fashion meaning it’s all over the place and does not really have a flow to it. I did just want to write all this in hopes that someone who maybe has struggled or is struggling in this way would not feel alone. Thank you for reading