It is so easy to get down on ourselves as parents and feel overwhelmed. It’s easy to see the mundane day to day things we do and feel like we accomplish nothing. It’s not true though! You’ve got to see what you’re actually doing. Do you realize and everyday as you go around picking up, or having conversations that help an older child or change a diaper or fold the laundry – that’s all service. It’s all helping your kids feel closer to Christ because they can see Him in YOU!
Can’t listen? Here it is! You can read today’s episode too!
Hi, I’m Kara. Welcome to the today. I am in a podcast where together we learn how to embrace imperfection and the messes that life leaves behind and overcome our shortcomings together. We will begin to not only see, but to feel we truly are and who God created us to be. Let’s talk.
Hello. Welcome to today’s episode. I am so excited to continue talking about parenting and what that can look like for us in various stages of our lives today. I feel like I need to share a little bit of a story with you. And on my website, I have a few blog posts just to a handful. And today I would like to actually read you one.
So if you want, you can go find this one. It’s called, Dear Overwhelmed Mother and has some important points in it. But especially the point in that you’re doing better than you think you are. So I hope you listen in today and can gain something from this perspective of it’s okay. To be overwhelmed. And it’s okay to feel like.
Life is just pounding on you sometimes because you’re not alone in that. We all feel that sometimes. So I have a little disclaimer at the top that I’ll start with and then read you this letter to my friend. I want to make sure that, you know, before reading this, that whether you have one child or 12 children, we all have moments where we become an overwhelmed.
Don’t feel like, because I talk about having six kids close together, it means that you can’t relate to or need to feel bad for relating. One thing I’ve learned is that whatever stage you are in that is the hardest place you’ve been as a mother. It was hard when I had one, it was a different, hard when I had four, we have all have heart and we can relate without putting ourselves down for having different, hard things.
Dear friends. AKA overwhelmed mother. You know what? That moment is like the one where the day seems to be crashing down around you. Dinner isn’t even started. The breakfast dishes are still everywhere. The floor is sticky. The kids are running around in pajamas. And you feel like you don’t have control of anything.
Someone is screaming for you or at you, or possibly both. Sometimes motherhood just becomes overwhelming. I’ve had that moment. What feels like a million times. Motherhood has been something that has not come as naturally as I anticipated when I was an older teenager and a young adult, the patients I went once felt like I had seems to have disappeared.
Having six kids in the span of seven years has been a great way to see how patient I actually am or rather the lack of patients I actually have for so many years, I had a baby, a toddler and a pre. The days where, oh, so long everyone told me I’d miss it someday. I’m still waiting to miss it. I had, and still have these moments where it all just comes, become so overwhelming to me.
The kids are so loud. Sometimes the house just won’t stay picked up and the laundry is five to six loads deep in various stages. And everyone is asking me questions. It is in these moments where I just need to step away from the. Lock myself in my room and have a good cry and to talk with God almost every time I start by saying, how am I supposed to do this as I calm down and try to be still.
And listen, it is in these moments when my frustration comms that I can feel the help and comfort I need. I feel the answer to my questions and frustrations. I have been given the kids I have in the Spanish. ’cause he knows that I can do it. And I am given the reinsure that reassurance to as their mother, I am the one that is supposed to teach them and help them and walk with them and learn with them.
The quiet whisper inside tells me you are enough for them. You can do it. Get back up, keep trying. I am with you with this reassurance. I am able to. I’m able to pick up the house, listen more carefully to the many voices calling me and I am able to calm the frustrated child, the patients I used to have shines through just a little bit through all the struggle and all the chaos.
We can find peace. We can find the reminder within us that we are doing okay. There is a voice that may be quiet and seem hidden, but it is there. And we’ll will remind you that you are. It’s there. Try your hardest to let it come through and bring the light. You need. Stop letting the negative voices cover and hide it.
You are doing your best. Motherhood is so hard.
Some days will become easier than others. However, as you go about your day picking up the same message as you picked up 200 other times that day being a referee, again, driving the kids everywhere, emptying the dishwasher, filling the dishwasher, trying to listen to all the stories, making the kids feel heard and loved and realizing that all these things are being done with love (even if it’s frustrated, love) by you. And when you step back, you will realize that you are constantly serving your. Acknowledge that about yourself. Notice you’re serving and helping your kids do things they can’t do for themselves or selectively. Forget how to do you get the opportunity to teach and reteach skills or just teach them how to be a good person in this world.
My dear friend, you may feel like an overwhelmed mother, but please, please remember that you are loved. You are needed more than you realize you are doing beautiful things. You’ve got this. You are meant to be a mother. You are meant to mother the children that you have, you are exactly who they need, and they are exactly who you need.
Take a moment today to look yourself in the eyes, go up to a mirror without judging. Don’t think about all the things that you should change about yourself or the flaws that you have or what you wish. Just look into your own eyes for a moment and say out loud, I am a good enough mother today, and then believe it because you are.
I hope that you can feel this message within you. I hope something has touched you because your kids need you and you need them. And even though there’s going to be days where you feel overwhelmed and like you’re failing and like there’s nothing that you can do. Right. And that they just hate you. It’s not true.
It’s not how it is because there’s moments of joy, there’s moments and rewards. And they’re far and few in between. It seems like, but they’re there. Your kids love you and need you recognize that you are doing your best. Your best is good. It is. And as we progress and we try and change and we try and become a little bit better each day, that’s enough.
That’s all that we’ve been asked to do is be a little bit better than we were yesterday. And sometimes we’re going to feel like we’re falling flat on our face and that we are 10 times worse than we were the day before, and so overwhelmed but it’s not true. We’re learning. You’ve never been here. You’ve never had kids all the same ages as they are right.
This moment. And it’s hard. It’s difficult. They’ve never been in these places. Either be gentle with each other, be patient with each other and do your best. Find those moments. Notice the service that you’re rendering an offer. That is the best thing you can do for your kids and your family. Thank you so much for listening today.
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