I'm writing for Five Minute Friday today and this week's prompt word is CAPACITY.
I didn't think I'd be able to get to it (it's been a rough week) but I figured I'd better because the word CAPACITY was my suggestion. (Thanks Kate).
Lately the Lord has been dealing with me about my failures - as a mum. He's not been doing that the way I think He should - with a whip and condemnation.
He's been doing that with mercy and truth - His hallmarks.
And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. John 1:16-17
He's been showing me some stuff I'd rather not see and know. Not my perspective and not theirs. His perspective - that's truth.
But He's been pouring His mercy on that revealed truth and letting it run into all the nooks and crannies of failure and pain.
Being a mum is mostly about capacity - your capacity to meet the needs of this little bundle of joy, as they grow and develop and change in their needs. It's exhausting on many levels and it exposes our lack of capacity in ways that we never knew existed. It can be frightening and overwhelming and when it is, we can dig deeper into our own limited capacity, lean on someone else, or we can run to Him.
Your capacity as a mum to love, nurture, give, serve, teach, train, and even forgive is often limited by the mothering you received. That can be a copout, a place for self-pity, or it can be a starting place for change.
It can be the starting place for recognising that you need something, someone beyond yourself to flow through you to this person who is looking to you for their every need - constantly.
That's our ongoing choice in the trenches of mothering - to draw on His endless capacity. We don't always hear it that way or allow ourselves to believe it but it's true. He is waiting for us, to renew our strength and expand our capacity to meet their ongoing and changing needs.
He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
and the young men shall utterly fall,
But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint. Isa 40:29-31
To mother well, we need strength and wisdom and understanding and confidence and support and so much more.
We need to learn to lean. We need to recognise our own incapacity, our limits, and call on Him.
When we don't, we stay dry and drained and our children suffer and so do we.
Often when our capacity to love and keep loving is limited because of trauma - past and present - there tends to be pain and plenty of it, for the child and the mother. He is currently taking me backwards through those doorways of pain - to heal and set free.
Even as an adult, I have come to understand how much pain you can suffer when someone who was standing in the gap for you, as a mother, stops doing that (for their own reasons), and you're left drowning, floundering, empty, confused, lost, and angry.
How much more so for a child. But God can heal and restore and mend if we let Him.
If we let Him.
I said to someone recently that forgiveness is divine. We can't do it in our own strength or capacity, especially when there's much to forgive. It has to come from Him and then through us and keep coming, like the water in a river.
I believe mothering needs to be divine. Our God designed motherhood and He is our model and our source. Like a river, our source needs to be beyond ourselves or we become very dry indeed.
We can't do it well in our own strength. I know because I've tried - and my girls have all suffered as a result, and so have I. I tried to be the strong mum without actually tapping into His capacity.
Our capacity is limited by many things, and just by being human, even if we had an amazing mum.
What to do?
Come to the One whose capacity is endless and unfailing and always ready to restore and renew and refresh.
How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!
Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings.
They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house,
And You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures.
For with You is the fountain of life;
In Your light we see light. Psalm 36:7-9
Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” Lam 3:22-24
We need to come to Him with our failures and regrets and resentments and pride and unforgiveness and whatever else we've buried and carried, some of us for decades.
Our current capacity remains limited until we do.
This river is not usually running this fast. But it can hold considerably more water than it currently is. It is a source of life for many farms downstream.
We need to bring our incapacity to Him and let Him send fresh water down our rivers.
Will we bring our failures as a mum, whether we've been at it for months, years or decades, and let Him heal our hearts and our capacity?
What He's shown me this morning is that our current capacity is limited by our previous failures - real and perceived.
Our real failures need to be brought to Him so He can heal, renew, redeem, mend, restore.
Our perceived failures need to be left at the foot of the cross, and not picked up or received again, even if someone tries to pin them on us.
Mercy and truth are ours, if we will bring all our 'failures' to Him.
Mercy and truth have met together;
Righteousness and peace have kissed.
Truth shall spring out of the earth,
And righteousness shall look down from heaven.
Yes, the Lord will give what is good;
And our land will yield its increase (in capacity)
Righteousness will go before Him,
And shall make His footsteps our pathway. Psalm 85:10-13
This is one of my favourite songs. I think I've shared it before. Often, when I don't know what to do or how to change something, I will remind myself that He is all I need.
El Roi, the God Who Sees
You are My Banner, Jehovah-Nissi
The All Sufficient One, El Shaddai
Jehovah-Jireh, You Will Provide
Rapha, the Lord Who Heals
Shalom, you are my Peace
The Lord of Hosts, Jehovah-Sabaoth
El Olam, the Everlasting God
Worthy is Your Name; Worthy of all my praise
Worthy is Your Name; Worthy of all my praise
I wish I had had the Lord in my life back when my kids were little and I was a single mom.
ReplyDeleteP.S. That is a beautiful song.