Trading Mommy Guilt for Mommy Grace

Thanks, reader Michelle, for your thoughts on this topic to which we can all relate a little too well! 

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In a society of parenting magazines and books galore, guilt rings loud from every corner: the food we buy or don’t, the time we spend or don’t, the activities we choose or don’t.

And that is how I found myself Googling up a storm:

• “how to play with a toddler”
• “what activities to do with a toddler”
• “how much time to play with a toddler”

I struggle with getting down on the floor to play.  We spend plenty of time out for walks, washing dishes, reading stacks of books, eating together.  But plop me on the floor with a pile of Duplos and stuffed animals?  My attention span shrinks to that of a goldfish.

I love my little girl.  I love her onomatopoeia- and food-centric vocabulary.  I love the pride she takes in putting things in the trash all by herself.  I love her giggles, her hugs…everything about this child.  And so I find myself often worrying: if I love her, why don’t I play with her more?  Doesn’t she need that from me?

Then one day, my little one started a new game.  She put a felt tomato in a pot and brought it from her play kitchen to the ottoman.  After warning me it was hot, she set it down and folded her hands.

And she waited for me to pray for her felt tomato.

Stunned, I folded my own hands and bowed my head.  “Father, thank You for this food and for this day, Amen.”

“Amen!” she squealed, completely delighted.

My prayer had not been long or pretty or even particularly inspiring.  But that didn’t stop my little girl from asking for another one.

And so a new game began.  Here, there, and anywhere in our day, my daughter would stop and want to pray.  “Pway!” I would hear and watch her shiny grin as she folded her hands and waited for me to begin.  We thanked Jesus for Papa, for the sunshine, for our snack, for the great deal on pasta sauce…whatever was at hand or on my mind.

We asked God to show us how to use our time, how to love others, how to minister to this or that person.  We prayed for our church’s missionaries.  We prayed for the boy we sponsor through Compassion.

And then I had one of those days.  One of those husband working late, the laundry monster is hungry, not feeling well, and the little one’s teething kind of days.  After spinning my wheels and getting nowhere, I looked down in my daughter’s eyes and knew I had to change courses.

I sat down beside her on the floor, next to the drying rack filled with damp shirts and diapers.  “Mama’s having a bad day…can I pray?”

Like a little sage, she nodded and waited.  My tears poured out with words of struggle and hurt and exhaustion.  I don’t recall the words, but I still remember the peace I felt afterward as I hugged my baby girl near.

She doesn’t ask to pray as often anymore, but when she does, I tell her to do the talking.  “Tankoo” kicks off a string of sweet baby babble that melts my heart, even though I don’t understand a word of it.

I still need to put forth the effort to play with my daughter, to love on her by playing dolls and blocks, but watching her bow her head at the dinner table or fold her hands in her crib while Papa prays before bed remind me that God can use even imperfect mommies like me to reach His children.

{I love how Michelle traded mama-guilt for mama-grace when she embraced the sacred mundane by simply praying with and for her girl. Everything is “play” to children if we do it with joy and grace. Thanks for reading.} 

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Michelle Jorgenson is mother to one dainty toddler girl and wife to a professor-in-training.  She spends naptime spinning yarns and her first novel, Regardless, chronicles the life of a believer in the early church as he brushes shoulders with real people from the Bible.