I just love The Message paraphrase of Romans 8:38-39.  “Absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.”

Doesn’t it paint just the most tender and beautiful picture?  Jesus has embraced us!  And nothing – no sin, no shortcoming, no shame – can wedge its way into that embrace. Jesus holds us THAT TIGHTLY in His embrace. 

I recently had coffee with a friend who is a first-time mom, and her adorable baby is getting older and beginning to look more like a tantruming toddler.  She is also pregnant with her second child.  So to say she was feeling really overwhelmed and defeated on this particular day would be an understatement.

This particular friend is familiar with how my parenting journey began, which just means she knows that when I first became a mom, and I had 3 little boys under 5, I had unrealistic expectations of perfection of myself, and therefore I had unrealistic expectations of perfection of my kids. 

We need to remind each other that we’re not alone.  As my pal Heather MacFadyen says “Don’t Mom Alone.”  We need each other to remember that we aren’t the only ones who feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of influence we carry, and we feel terribly inadequate to help our children navigate the hardships they face. We know we’ve got only one shot at this, and we desperately want to get it right for them. 

But while we’re doing the very best we can to raise overcomers and world changers, and to help our kids navigate this life with confidence and humility, we often feel like we’re drowning. There is so much we can’t prevent or fix. It hurts to see our kids hurt. 

One of the questions that came up in a recent podcast I did was this: Why can it be so hard to trust God with our kids?  Is it because we think we know what’s best for them? Is it because we think we have bigger dreams than God does for them? Is it because we don't like feeling like we don’t have control over them? Oh yeh, I had to admit that all of those things tempt me to put my trust in my parenting rather than in God’s providence.

Beginning February 1st – and then every other day throughout the entire month - I am going to post a “freedom declaration” from the Mom Set Free Manifesto on my Instagram and Facebook pages.  TOGETHER we will DECLARE the POWERFUL PROMISES of God’s Word over the pressures we face in our parenting.  We’re basically telling the pressure that it’s not the boss of us, and we are holding tight the promises of God, even amidst the pressure.  Doesn’t that sound so good? 

A friend of mine joked over the weekend, “I always resolve to be a more patient mom on January 1st.  And I usually give up by mid-January.  And then I just feel guilty. So this year I didn’t make a resolution to be more patient because I don’t need more mom guilt in my life.”  She was kidding, but she wasn’t.  

Will you join me in making 2018 the year that you REALLY experience and enjoy the “freely and lightly” invitation of God in your parenting?   I wouldn’t consider this our new year’s resolution but rather our new year’s prayer.  And I’d love to share with you the Mom Set Free prayer that I wrote for us at the end of the book.

“My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” - 2 Corinthians 12:9

This is what the Lord said to Paul after Paul begged the Lord to take away a weakness in his life. Can we just sit with this verse for a moment and think about how we would have responded to this assurance that the Lord gave Paul.

Hello, Friend!  I’m writing with exciting news!  The Mom Set Free Bible Study is now available AND I have A LOT of copies to GIVE AWAY!!

I couldn’t wait for this day to get here to share this study with you because I’m a Bible Study girl and I don’t know what I’d do without my Wednesday morning Bible Study crew. I know how powerful and beautiful it is to study the Word of God alongside other women who also want to grow closer to God.

“The older my kids get, the more I realize how little control I have over them. My slipping sense of control produces so much anxiety in my life so I end up grasping for even more control.  I don’t know what else to do but I’m afraid to surrender.  Really afraid.”

That was a very real and honest fear shared with me recently by another mom who is watching her eldest child navigate his teen years, and is worried sick about his choices and the outcomes. 

As I wrote about my own struggle with “controlling my kids” in Mom Set Free, I often wondered if surrender came easier to other moms.  I wondered if I was mostly alone in my struggle to unclench my fists that were trying to control outcomes and parent more open-handed to God’s plans. But based on an Instagram comment feed I scrolled through just last week, I know I am not alone.  In fact, control seems to be something most moms struggle with.