His Mercies Are New For Us

I'm not sure what your nighttime routine is, but after my kids are in bed and the house is finally quiet, I pop a bag of popcorn and sit down to finally have some me time.

But there are those nights when I finally relax that I have a wave of guilt rush over me about how I handled my day. It's usually because I lost my patience with my kids, I yelled when I didn't need to, or I just didn't give them the attention they needed. When I have those bad days I tend to feel like I failed my kids a bit that day and I say a silent prayer that my kids won't remember me as the crazy mom who screamed.

Does this sound familiar? It's so easy to dwell on the feelings of failure and succumb to the thoughts that you aren't an adequate parent because your day wasn't one you wanted to brag about on Facebook.

I want to encourage you that every honest mom has had a bad day (or many of those days) and most of us strongly dislike feeling like we can do a better job.

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV

The Bible tells us that His mercies are new for us every day. He doesn't run out of mercy for us and if We have repented and turned to Him, then when the sun rises we get to have a fresh start.

This goes for being a mom too. Maybe there are things we need to change in our parenting and things we need to do a little differently. We shouldn't stop trying to be better moms, it's healthy to evaluate and grow from our shortcomings.

But remember, even when that day didn't go as planned and you were the mom who snapped in the doctor's office when her child had a complete meltdown in the waiting room over a toy (true story) His mercies are new everyday. When you have to walk away from your children and go to a quiet place for a few minutes, His mercies are new everyday. When your family night turns into a family fight, His mercies are new everyday.

If the sun rises for us the next day, then we get a fresh start. Tomorrow we can wake up, pray that God helps us throughout the day, and we can get out of bed with a new perspective. And maybe tomorrow we'll get to tuck our kids in for bed and we can smile knowing we rocked it as a mom. 

But if not, just remember, if God is merciful to us when we sin and He gives us strength to overcome temptation then surely He can give us grace as moms and He can help us become the mothers we want to be. And if God can give us that kind of mercy, then we should be able to extend that kind of forgiveness to ourselves as well.