broken mama

Motherhood is an emotional affair. The strongest, most potent feelings of love, fear, hope, frustration, anger, and desperation flow from the relationships we have with our children.


You can never tell a woman she is a bad mama without creating a very big problem in her soul. Even in our most selfish moments, mamas want so much to do the right thing for their babies. The guilt a woman carries if she has failed, in small or great ways, can be a tremendous burden to bear.


God makes us mamas, and He knows mamas are not perfect. We are flawed humans, who make mistakes, lose tempers, misunderstand motives, forget promises, and we can even become blinded by our own sin.


What’s a broken mama to do? How do we get back to the business of loving our children when we feel we have fallen from grace? Once apologies have been made and forgiveness given, proving our love again is not as hard as it might seem.


Jesus proved His love by washing feet in John 13.

That’s what a mama longs to do: show the full extent of her love. Mamas know love. But the blessing Jesus promised is not in the knowing of love, it’s in the doing of love.


Getting on our knees and tying shoes; folding clean shirts with a whispered prayer; cutting crusts off sandwiches; putting super hero band aids on invisible booboos; hiding in the wide open while toddlers cover their eyes and count; slicing apples; braiding hair and painting nails; reading books until they are memorized; scrubbing toilets; paying bills; hugging necks; and teaching poems; mamas do love in lots and lots of ways.


It’s not easy to do love like that. It takes intentional choices to close our own books, turn off our computers, walk away from our television shows, and not answer our phones. Doing love requires cherishing children who are imperfect, sometimes difficult to handle, and often in the way of our own agendas.


One day, though, when little people turn into big grown men and women, the blessing will overtake the mamas who chose to do love by serving their children in the ordinary everyday way that good mamas have for generations. Their example of selfless love will teach their children to love one another as they were loved. Then their grandbabies will love others that way, and the blessing of love will pour through the generations.


Hearts become unbroken as love is done daily.  It can be hard work to do the love we know for our children.


But the mamas who do never regret it.