Mothers: A Reflection of God's Love - Point 4

So our kids, they make mistakes, right? It's part of growing up. It doesn't change our love for them. I often think I show my kids a lot of grace, but sometimes my grace runs out, right? And I make mistakes in my parenting. I have gotten angry with my children. I have overreacted. I have yelled at them. One of the worst things I've done is compare them to each other. I don't know if you've ever done this, but I can remember this one time in particular. I'm running late, and my son, I have this one son, he has one speed, and it's very slow, okay? Very slow, and he just has to put his shoes on. That's it, just put your shoes on, and we get in the car, right? And so I'm tempted as his mother to just like shove his shoes on him, grab him, and drag him to the car. But instead, I try to be patient, but I fail even worse, and instead I yell to him, and I'm like, why can't you just be more like your brother who was sitting in the car waiting? Well, that was not grace, and that was not the right response to him, and it hurt his feelings very deeply. But here's the thing. Our God, he never overreacts.

He never makes mistakes in his parenting. He never yells. His love is perfect because he is perfect, and he would never compare us to his other children. God is kind, he is patient, he is full of grace, and I love how King David refers to him as compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. He gives us grace when we don't deserve it, which honestly, at least in my case, is most of the time. But here's one of my favorite stories in the Bible. You all know who Eve is, the mother of all mankind. Okay, Eve. So Eve literally broke the only rule God gave her, the only rule, which was to not eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That's it. Eve had to follow that one rule. Not only did she eat the fruit, she gave it to her husband to eat the fruit. Then to make matters worse, after they did that, she hid from God, and then when God confronted her, she blamed someone else. Okay, at this point, if I'm God, I'm like out of grace for her, right? Like Eve, you messed up, right? But God, God responds a lot differently than me, thankfully. So yes, Eve faced earthly consequences, but God was so full of grace that he banished her from the garden.

Now you might be saying, hold on, hold on, hold on, Katie. The banishment from the garden, that was punishment. But I wanna show you how that was grace, okay? Because of her sin, Eve could no longer be in the presence of God, who is holy. Listen to what it says in Genesis 3, verses 22 through 24. It says, and the Lord God said, the man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and Eden live forever. So the Lord banished him from the garden of Eden to work the ground for which he had been taken. And after he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. So if Adam and Eve had stayed in the garden and had access to the tree of life, they would have eaten it. And then they would have stayed in their broken, sinful state for all of eternity separated from God. So God did not want that from them. So he banished them out of the garden and guarded the way to the tree of life so that he could begin his plan to redeem them. It's just amazing to me that God is so good. God is so good, especially when we are not.

As a mother, God wants you to know that too. He wants you to know that he is full of grace. He is sufficient when you are insufficient. He fills in the gaps where you fail. He is good when you are not good enough. He promises us as mothers that if we train our children in the way they should go, they will not depart from it. He does not say you have to be a perfect mother, right? Because he knows we can't, but he is perfect. And thankfully, the grace that we show our kids can help them move mountains, but only when we recognize and understand the grace that God has for us.