Moms, You Have Permission to Feel Weary and Exhausted
Come to Me, All of You
Weary, discouraged moms need permission to feel okay about feeling weary and exhausted. Small children are exhausting. It's hard. And I think of the woman specifically, in the Gospels, with the discharge of blood who is clawing her way to Jesus and knows that she needs to see the Savior. And Scripture says it's because she's exhausted all of her options. So she has already talked to the doctors. She has already tried all of the natural supplements. She has already done everything that she knows to do in her own power. Jesus is her last resource.
And I think sometimes, as weary moms, we come to Jesus in the same way. We've tried the behavior modification strategies. We've tried calling a friend. We've tried doing one more thing the right way. And when we come to the end of ourselves. Instead of saying, Oh, I'm supposed to go to Jesus. What does this look like?, we just try one more thing. Or we feel ashamed and think, I can't go to Jesus with this because I should have gone to him first, and now I feel ashamed.
A Better Encouragement
Lindsey Carlson
Lindsey Carlson leads weak and weary women to a refreshing stream—the God of endurance and encouragement, who satisfies spiritual thirst through the better word of his Son.
Shame is not the posture that we need to take when we're weary and discouraged. Jesus is gentle and he wants us to come to him. And so when the woman with a discharge of blood goes to Jesus, he feels the power go out of him. He turns and looks for the woman and asks who touched him.
That shows that the compassion of Jesus is to emotionally and relationally connect to that woman. He doesn't just give her tools. He gives her attention and relationship. Weary, discouraged moms need to expect that when we come to Scripture or when we come to prayer, we're going to find Christ is relational and he's tender and he wants to connect with us.
Shame is not the posture that we need to take when we're weary and discouraged. Jesus is gentle and he wants us to come to him.
Sometimes we're so tired from doing the everyday chores of laundry and managing timeouts that we think we don't have time to get in the word and to read and to pray. But really, we don't have time to not be in the word. We don't have time to not pray. That is how we would reach out and touch Jesus.
Lindsay Carlson is the author of A Better Encouragement: Trading Self-Help for True Hope.
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