Angi Aymond

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.

C.S Lewis

Lewis wasn’t wrong.

My heart has been broken over and over through my journey of motherhood. Often by my children. Too often by their heartaches.

But more often than not, my heart has suffered as a result of my lousy mothering.

Yes. Mother’s Day is a celebration of motherhood and the many mothers who’ve loved deeply enough to propel generation after generation forward.  But all I can think about are the many ways I failed as a mother, parenting from a place of fear and brokenness.

For me, the pangs of childbirth didn’t end with the delivery of my children. They simply moved from my uterus to my heart.

The times too many my tongue pierced tiny hearts and wounded spirits.

The poorly framed faith I handed off. A faith founded in performance and fear, rather than truth and grace.

Bars set too high, creating anxiety and crushing confidences.

A constant feed of self-hatred, leaking out every time I looked in the mirror, never falling upon deaf ears or hearts.

All the things I can never take back, or unspeak. The fractures and fissures firmly in place.

I never set out to be that mom. No one sets their sights on such things.

Oh, sure. I did some things right. But owning my mistakes has allowed me to surrender them to the One who loves my children even more than I. Trusting Him to redeem all that I passed on to my children, the good and the bad. Asking Him to work in their hearts as much as He has worked in my own.

For all the mothers who’ve totally rocked this motherhood thing, I applaude you!

And for any of you whose story looks a bit more like mine, I invite you to surrender your story, too.  And trust God to restore and redeem all that we may have broken along the way. For our children’s good. And for His glory!!

Happy Mother’s Day!