"My mothering was all performance—I never knew what I was doing, just faked it."
How it sounds in your head: Every bedtime prayer, every scraped knee I kissed, every holiday I orchestrated—I was just copying what I saw, pretending to know how to be a mother. Other women seemed to have some instinct I never had. I was winging it for decades, and somehow my children never realized their mother was a fraud.
"He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those who are with young."
-- Isaiah 40:11Source: enemy - Satan wants to rob you of the JOY of your legacy by convincing you love only counts if it was performed with clinical confidence.
You remember every mistake, every moment of uncertainty, every time you cried in the bathroom wondering if you were ruining them. The enemy replays your hardest days while hiding the thousands of ordinary moments where your love shaped souls.
Moses' mother had three months with her baby before hiding him in a basket among crocodiles, hoping a princess would find him—the ultimate 'I have no idea if this will work' mothering moment. Yet God used her terrified, desperate act to position Moses to deliver a nation, and she even got paid to nurse her own son.
I REFUSE the lie that love mixed with uncertainty equals fraud. IT IS WRITTEN that He gently leads those who are with young, and He led me through every diaper change, every teenage crisis, every moment I felt lost. My children didn't need a perfect mother—they needed a present one, and I showed up. IT IS WRITTEN that love covers a multitude of sins, and the love I gave was REAL even when I didn't know what I was doing. I am blessed coming in and going out, and that includes every threshold I crossed carrying groceries and babies and prayers. The BARAK blessing was on my home, on my children, on my trembling attempts to raise them well. I was never alone in that kitchen, that laundry room, that midnight vigil. The Father was there, making up every gap, redeeming every mistake.
The Father is showing you now what He saw then—not a fraud, but a frightened woman loving her children the best way she knew how, and He was filling in every gap with His perfect love. Your children didn't survive in spite of your uncertainty; they thrived because you brought them to the Shepherd who leads gently.