“Why are you just standing here? Go out and play,” the harried mother said to one of her daughters, who seemed glued to a spot in the middle of the kitchen.
“You told me to stand here,” the little girl sheepishly replied.
“Oh,” the mother said, not wanting to appear as clueless as she felt. “Why did I tell you that?”
“I’m being punished,” the daughter said.
The mother confessed she couldn’t remember for the life of her what her daughter had done to earn the “time out.”
And so, I rest my case: Even the best moms can’t be perfect moms.
The anecdote above was told to me by an 80-something-year-old mother who very successfully reared six children, all of whom I’m blessed to know. On Mother’s Day last year, I was congratulating this mom on a job well done. Brushing aside my compliments, the woman put her hand beside her mouth and stage whispered, “I don’t know how they turned out that way. I don’t think I really did a very good job.”
Her comments weren’t expressions of false humility, nor was she being critical of her children. This mom, like most of us, just found it hard to see what she had done right and so very easy to recall all the times she was less than perfect.
When my sons were little, I often found myself praying, “Lord, please come in behind me and sweep up the mess I’ve made today.” And I meant it. I needed His grace to fill the little nicks my impatient words had jabbed into the hearts of my boys; I needed His strong, perfect love to guide and protect them when I couldn’t.
I didn’t mean to be so imperfect. No, with all my heart, I wanted to be the best mom ever. But I’m pretty sure I wasn’t.
I resolved every day to be more patient, more unselfish … and that was easy, as the joke says, until I got out of bed each morning and actually encountered another human being.
Before I could even get my halo out of the closet and securely positioned on my head, somebody dumped a box of Cheeri-o’s on the floor, or emptied the whole jar of fish food into the aquarium, or summoned me to referee another squabble over T.V. shows or the last Twinkie in the box.
Far too quickly, expressions of exasperation jumped out of my mouth, and I’d have to stow away the halo for another day. I thought that maybe tomorrow I’d get it all right … but I never did.
And like this precious, successful mother of six, those things I wish I’d done better are the things my mind tends to zip to when I think about my years as a young mom.
But then I look at my grown sons and I’m reminded of something more powerful than my shortcomings – the grace of God. His amazing, redeeming grace. We have to need it to experience it; we have to admit how far short we fall before we can appreciate how far God reaches down to lift us up. And nothing reveals that like parenthood.
So where do you need His grace today? Life is full of opportunities to fail and fall short. Nobody gets it right all the time.
Can you admit to God your need for His forgiveness and help? That’s the first step in the right direction. Ask Him to sweep up the messes you may have made, and give Him room to do that His way. If we ask, He responds, sweeping up, and sweeping in, with grace. Amazing grace.
“For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.” – John 1:16