I am not a perfect mother.
There. I said it.
I've heard the first step is acceptance.
I learned a long time ago that even when I make a mistake, I don't have to beat myself up about it. Even though I tend to.
I don't need to because I have two other sets of eyes watching me every single day. And they are growing and learning and following my example. They need to see those mistakes. They need to know it's okay to make mistakes as long as we hold ourselves accountable and learn from them.
I am not a perfect mother. I mess up all the time. In fact, sometimes I'm even surprised when I feel like I'm getting it right. But there are moments. Special, God-filled moments when I feel like He has equipped me to raise the two most precious gifts this side of heaven that He has ever given me.
So, I'm sitting at the table one Saturday afternoon with the almost -13-year-old. He has the Chromebook because he's catching up on some homework assignments.
Across the table from him is a hot mess. Not me, so stop laughing right now. I can hear you!
There is a Penton Farms strawberry picking bucket loaded down with colored pencils and markers of every color you could possibly imagine. A plastic container with a matching lid holding washi tape, gel pens, tape, both Elmer's glue and a glue stick, Bible safe gel highlighters, post it notes, and odd ball pieces of scrapbook paper.
There's also a Believer's Commentary Book, my brand new leather soft Bible and its cool blue tabs, and a very pretty notebook War Binder that appears to be getting thicker with each passing day.
A few weeks before we finished Experiencing God at church, I committed to reading through the Bible.
I decided once I started that I'm not limiting myself to a year because it could take longer. And I want to understand what I'm reading and how I can apply it my life. So I've been faithfully getting up early or setting aside time before leaving for work (or going to bed) to read through a chapter or two of the Bible and then to write prayers down in my prayer journal War Binder.
So I've spread everything out on this afternoon to work through a section of chapters in the Bible that day. And every once in a while I will glance up and catch the almost-13-year-old looking at me. It eventually resulted in a question.
His eyes wide, he says: "Are you gonna ready that entire thing?"
The Believer's commentary I found on Amazon is HUGE, y'all. So I put my hand on it.
"This?"
He shook his head, "The Bible."
I've committed to read the Bible through the year several years in a row and I've never been able to do it from start to finish. I always get lost in the animal sacrifices or the so-and-so begat so-and-so and wander off into the land of distraction and business. But this is God's Word. This is his love letter to US.
"You know, I've tried to read it almost every year and I never finish it. Some people read it from January to December. Some people read it every single year. But I don't want to just read the words," I told him, "I want to understand what God is saying. I want to know what it means and how I can use it in my life. Even if it takes me longer than a year."
His eyes were still so wide.
So I told him something that I'd learned that day about Abraham and Sarah.
"Did you know that the name Isaac literally means laughter?"
We laughed.
"So when Sarah said in Genesis 21 that 'God has brought me laughter' she was talking about God bringing her Isaac when she thought she was too old to have any children."
He said he didn't know that either. So I told him if God could bring Sarah and Abraham a baby when she felt like she was too old to have children, then maybe today for us that means that there is nothing that God can't do.
God can do great things.
He can take this single mama who is beginning to truly understand His love and pursuit of her with a heart's desire to know Him more. He can put me at the table with my almost-13-year-old son who butt heads so much over moods and distractions and school behavior and rules and electronics. A mother and son who love each other so much through the struggle of understanding what is right and what is wrong, what is acceptable and what is not.
I don't want him or his sister to ever think like I used to, that trying to read and study God's word means we just give up if we don't get it right the first time. That is not the example of faith I want to be for my children. And I want them to know that success doesn't just come with reading God's Word: it's just as important to understand what we are reading and how it applies to us.
What a sweet, God-filled moment at the table between mother and child. I'm not always going to get it right. So I'm super thankful to trust the God who can work through me to be an example for my children.
God can do great things. There's nothing my God can't do.
