The Perfect Mom

Hi my name is Christine and I blog about faith, family and the things in life that inspire me to be creative at grateful for a coffee break. Samantha is a dear friend of mine and I’m so happy to be guest posting today for all of you, her lovely readers!

I can’t help but remember thinking in the few short moments after the nurse handed me my baby on the way out of the hospital that she was making a big mistake letting my husband and I take him home. We knew absolutely nothing about caring for a baby and even less about raising one, and I nearly said so out loud in the hopes it might extend our hospital stay just a little longer. But I didn’t. Probably because I was too busy crying.

The following days were filled with a lot of anxiety. I was completely unaccustomed to the new hormones raging through my body and felt very much like my experience as a new mom was equal to or worse than what it must feel like to be on some kind of mind altering drug. I was overcome with emotion at the minutia of my day and worried if I could ever adjust to the demands of my new normal. 

It wasn’t so much the late nights or the frequent sprinkles when I changed a diaper. It wasn’t the nursing, or the fact that I still looked very pregnant, although all of those things played into the chaos on some level. I just didn’t know what to do, or how to do it well – and for me, that was a very unsettling discovery.

At some point, despite the fog in my brain, I picked up the phone and had a real conversation with a real mom-friend. This precious woman told me that I was never going to be a perfect mom. Ever. No matter how hard I tried, I would inevitably screw something up because I’m a human being with limitations and flaws. In the next breath she affirmed that I was the perfect mom for my son. Huge difference. God had specifically chosen me to be the mother of my child and no one else on earth would be able to do that job the way God intended except me.

 
 It’s been a few years since that call, and my baby has a brother now. Some days I wonder if I am any less clueless than I was when we began this parenting journey. Every day I am faced with challenges as I try to parent my boys the way God wants me to. The difference today is that I have confidence. I remind myself sometimes daily, that it was by God’s design I became a mom and that it was His plan to give me these two precious little boys. Even though sometimes I doubt it, He thinks I am enough.

 With Him, I believe I can be.