How Motherhood Revealed My Desperate Need for God
Human Limitations
When my oldest was only four years old and his brother was two, I was expecting a third child. And in that season, I just felt like I was exhausted all the time, chasing after these little boys and just not sleeping well at night. And that season helped me see that I just desperately need the Lord in so many areas of my life, but especially in my motherhood.
Specifically, one of the things that I found myself struggling with was just loving my children biblically. I loved my children. I do love my children. As their mother there’s a natural affection and just a joy and delight that I take in my children. But if I look at passages in the Bible, like 1 Corinthians 13, and read that love is patient, love is kind, it keeps no record of wrongs, I just know that I fall short, that I can’t conjure up that kind of love on my own.
Every Hour I Need You
Katie Faris
Through personal stories and biblical reflections, Katie Faris walks with women, helping them contemplate God’s unchanging character and see how his purposes are at work, even in the everyday moments of motherhood.
And that season of seeing my own impatience with my young boys, as well as these temptations in that full season to be selfish and maybe look for different escapes or even different fears that were emerging, I just was aware of my weakness and my limitations to really parent my children the way that I felt the Lord would want me to.
And that season did two things for me. One, as I’ve already said, it helped me recognize and acknowledge my need for the Lord. It also helped me go to him to meet that need and to go to him for the help that he could give me. And what that looked like was really taking time to study God’s word and really understand his love for me and how that applies personally, but then also how does the gospel inform how I demonstrate and extend that same love? It’s his love through me, his power through me, and it’s that same love I can give to my children—extending that love and speaking grace and truth into their lives.
Katie Faris is the author of Every Hour I Need You: 30 Meditations for Moms on the Character of God.
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