Pride: The Kryptonite of Motherhood

My sister reminds me fairly often of how much more she likes me since I became a mother.

"Jamison, you're just a better person.  Softer.  Kinder.  More approachable and able to relate to weakness."

These words sound strange to me.  Foreign, except maybe the last part.  Perhaps she has mistaken me for someone else… unlikely, since we are sisters.

Why does this description sound so far off base?  Because I've never liked myself less.  My opinion of myself, my ability to tackle challenges, my capacity to problem solve and succeed, my overall personhood, and my reflection of the Savior I love has never been lower.

I wonder if those thoughts hit you as hard while you read them as they hit me while I typed them.  I don't think I've ever put it quite so frankly to myself before.  But that is how I feel most days.  Sure, occasionally I will have a day where I feel like I was patient enough, gracious enough, selfless enough - but those days are few and far between.  Joy seems to evade me most of the time as I'm bogged down in daily responsibilities, the pressures of parenting, and the constant feeling that I'm not measuring up to the mother and person I'd always assumed I would be.  The mother I want to be seems so far out of grasp.  The mother I see in the mirror doesn't stand up to my standards.  She's selfish, self-centered, harsh, impatient, slothful… and worst (in my opinion) always distracted.

I have decided that it all boils down to my main sin struggle: pride.  Pride drives all my wrong attitudes.  Pride tells me what I deserve.  Pride tells me what I'm missing out on.  Pride tells me what he's doing wrong.  Pride tells me how my children should be treating me.

Pride is the nails scratching down the chalkboard commanding my attention - stripping me of contentment and pumping me full of resentment, anger, and self-pity.

Pride gives the response, "That's not how you talk to me," in a harsh tone to my two year old that forgot to say please.

Pride says, "Please just leave Mommy alone for 5 minutes because she never gets a second to herself."

Pride says, "I cannot rock you to sleep when you're in pain cutting your molars because I only got 3 hours of sleep last night and this is MY time to sleep."

Pride says, "No, you cannot go golf with your dad because when is the last time I did anything for myself?  Oh, that's right, NEVER because I'm always taking care of YOUR kids."

Pride says all of those things, but they come out of Jamison's mouth and fall on the ears of my precious baby, my darling toddler, and my loving husband.  And I feel validation… which is always followed by shame.  The word shame always fills my eyes with tears.

Pride strips me of any chance I have of being the mother I dream of being.  There is no room for selflessness, love, kindness, gentleness, patience, or any other maternal/Christ-like quality in a heart ruled by pride.

Pride is not always the fingernails scratching down the chalkboard - sometimes is comes as a whisper.  Whispering words of discontentment that invade all of your thoughts and actions throughout the day.  All it takes is one drop of color to permeate an entire bowl of water.  Pride is a cancer that eats away at the nature of your heart until you cannot recognize yourself and see pain reflected in the eyes of your loved ones.

***Enter the pep talk***

Shame and self-pity are not of the Lord.  Shame and self-pity are crippling tools Satan uses to deceive us into walking in the chains we have been set free from long ago.  It was for FREEDOM we have been set free, and we must not let ourselves live in the bondage of sin any longer.  To live in false chains is to disregard Christ's sacrifice on the cross and choose the mirage of self-pity over the glorious victory He has won for us already.

Is it true that I feel disappointed in my abilities as a mother on a daily basis? Without a doubt - for sure.  Because motherhood is hard.  It's so hard.  But it is a heck of a lot less hard when I ground my head and heart in God's word about who I am, whose I am, and what I am capable of with the help of the Holy Spirit…

You know what else I forgot to mention that pride says?  It says, "I can do this on my own, just you watch me."  Famous last words.  Believe me, I know, because they are my last words on lots of days before I crash in burn in the wreckage of pride.  Bystanders - beware of debris.

So, what to do? If Dr. Holy Ghost were going to prescribe something for a bad case of the i-can-do-it-all-myself-while-constantly-reminding-myself-of-everything-i-desreve-and-have-given-up-for-this-once-glamorous-but-really-its-destroyed-my-whole-identity-motherhood-business?

H U M I L I T Y

You know the tricky thing about humility, though?  It cannot be manufactured.  I like to think of it more as a seed that must be sown and reaped.  How to you sow and reap humility?  God's Word.

Interesting how it always come back to that book isn't it?

I need to feed and water my soul every single day with God's word if I have a stray cat in the dog park's chance of sowing and reaping any quality of Christ.

When I go to sleep tonight, I am disappointed and my cheeks might be a little wet.  The day could have been better (to put it gently).  But tomorrow is a new day.  A new day to show my family I love them.  A new day to show Jesus that I choose him.  A new day to dig my heels down deep in the Bible while letting go of strongholds that keep me from moving toward the person God is growing me to be.

So, here is to putting a muzzle on my pride, and picking up the watering can for my branch off the vine.

He is the vine, we are the branches.

So. Simple.  When I find myself fruitless, I look at my branch.  And then, I reattach that thing the VINE.

A quote from one of my favorite books:

"When I view motherhood not as a gift from God to make me holy but rather as a role with tasks that get in my way, I am missing out on one of God’s ordained means of spiritual growth in my life."   
Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full     
Gloria Furman
Get it, read it, memorize the ENTIRE book.