How to Find Biblical Joy When You Find Yourself in Mom Survival Mode

“Moms must be strengthened by grace to make the necessary sacrifices and to do the mundane, routine things that move the gospel forward.... We want Christ’s power to be made perfect through us weak moms. So, we will boast all the moregladly of our weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon us.” -Missional Motherhood 

Being a mom has been the most incredible and difficult thing I have ever done. I love being a mom and would not trade it for anything, but there have been days when I have wanted to escape or forget about it for just a few hours so I could give my brain a rest from the all-consuming thoughts of how to be a mom in the best way humanely possible!

I became a different person the moment those little ones were born. They moved into my home, and their presence has forever changed my heart and me. I am convinced that parents learn much more from their kids than they will ever learn from us. And even after they grow up and leave home, they are never far from our thoughts. We still worry about them, pray for them, long to be with them, want what is best for them, and want to be the best parents we can be!

Mom survival mode can begin when you bring your newborn home, but now that my children are both grown and married, I see that there is still an element of survival mode that stays with you in the empty nest years. You see, the empty nest years are when you look back at all that you have done, and you see the good and the bad, the success and the failure. You can see the things you could have done better and the things you really did not need to do. Your children are now able to sift through their childhood and evaluate how they were affected – for the good and the not-so-good. As parents, we are left with many memories, a few regrets, and an evident awareness that we had our one shot, and now we must live with the outcome of all that we did. We can walk in discouragement and defeat (survival mode), allowing it to steal our joy, or we can walk in humility and openly admit to our grown children that we know we made some mistakes and are continuing to grow and learn.

The survival mode that an empty nest mom experiences is different from the survival mode that a young mom experiences, but both moms need to be brought back to the Truth. We need God to enable us to see how important our calling of being a mom really is, and we need him to help us learn how to best love our children, regardless of our season, so we might be able to point them to God and love them the way that God loves us. We need to learn to fight for biblical joy even when we are weary and see clearly how weak we really are.

Verses to Help You When You Find Yourself in Mom Survival Mode

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up.”

When our children are little, we can pray for the strength to be available to them when they need us to be and that we will not miss the opportunities to teach them God’s truths and promises throughout the day. Being in the Word and sharing it with your children will help you keep your mind on Christ and lift you out of survival mode and into motherhood with purpose and joy. When our children are grown, we can pray that the truths we taught them will continue to guide who they are today and that we will be guided by those truths as well. This will lift us out of the condemnation or discouragement and into motherhood filled with the joy that is found in the truths and promises found in God’s Word.

Matthew 25:21 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

Whether you are a mom of littles, teens, or have grown children, you can pray that God would help you to see your calling to be a mom, in every season of motherhood, as a joyous task. You can offer your efforts up to God, bathing each task in prayer that you will catch His vision of keeping a home, and nurturing those who are in it, for the glory of God, remembering that if you are faithful, you will be considered to be “…worth far more than rubies”, and you will one day hear the words, “... Well done, good and faithful servant!” Matt. 25:21).

What Good Comes from Being in Mom Survival Mode

• You have the opportunity to lean on God and ask him for his perspective as you go throughout your day, accomplishing whatever tasks your season of motherhood requires of you. If you have been given the privilege of having children, you have a significant role in the lives of my children, regardless of their age.
• You have an opportunity to choose to step out of survival mode when you choose to fight for biblical joy. This can be accomplished when you ask God to help you to truly see, from your heart, that your children are a precious gift. You can tell them every day, for all their lives, that they are a gift from God’s hand. Telling my children this repeatedly, even as adults, keeps my heart soft towards them and stirs up gratefulness and joy because I have had the privilege of being their mom.

Find Biblical Joy by Focusing on God

1. Thank Him for Who He Is:

Father, thank you for being Yahweh M’Kaddesh. You are the Lord who sanctifies me and makes me holy. Thank you for using the calling of being a mom to show me how weak I am and how much I need you. In all the hard days, the days when I feel like I am just surviving, or when I am discouraged because of my failures as a mom, you are there to help me and are using the hard stuff to sanctify me and make me holy.

2. Thank Him for His Faithfulness:

Father, thank you for your faithfulness in every season of motherhood. Thank you that in every hard moment and with every challenge, I can do more than just survive. I can thrive and have joy in motherhood because I know that you are faithful to accomplish what you have promised to accomplish – in me and my children.

3. Thank Him for His Promises:

Father, thank you for your promises that give me so much joy. Promises that You are with me will never leave me and that You are using all things for my good, my children are good, and for Your glory.

4. Thank Him for His Provisions:

Father, thank you for providing for all my needs and my children’s needs in every season. You have provided what we need physically, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. You have surrounded us with your grace and strength. You have filled us with joy that is found in you alone.

To learn more about how to choose biblical joy, check out my book "Everyday Prayers for Joy"! 

For weekly encouragement on how to choose biblical joy in all circumstances, subscribe to "Choose Biblical Joy Today"

This article is part of a series by Gina Smith on biblical joy. Here are more of her articles:

How to Find Biblical Joy When You Face Life Changes

How to Find Biblical Joy When You Battle Depression

Finding Biblical Joy in Loneliness

How to Find Biblical Joy When Life Doesn’t Look the Way You Thought it Would

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