Identity Cards for Moms

As wild and beautiful as it may be, the challenges that come with motherhood often leave me second guessing myself and feeling as though I have lost a bit of my identity along the journey. The challenges that some days bring can leave me feeling overwhelmed and very much unable. Motherhood often brings me to this irrational place of self-doubt and self-criticism and if I’m not careful, even self-loathing.

Something huge that I have learned along the way is this - if we don’t intentionally find out the truth about who we really are and speak it over ourselves D A I L Y, we’re just leaving an open door for the enemy to come in and fill that void and tell us all the things we’re not.  For mom guilt and negative thinking about our parenting skills to override the truth and steal our joy and peace.

We are challenged physically and emotionally every single day.  We are pushed to our breaking point, we are exhausted beyond measure, sleep deprived, we have a million and one things to juggle and people to manage, meals to make, hearts to tend to, children to teach, lunches to pack, houses to clean, play dates to make, countless dates and obligations to remember.  

It’s hard work.  Good, wonderful, meaningful work, but hard work, nonetheless.  

Its almost always in those moments of being emotionally and physically drained when those negative thoughts will creep in to invade our peace, telling you all the things were just so darn bad at.  

I’m not good enough.
I’m not like the other moms at school.
I’m not pretty or skinny enough.
My kids aren’t well behaved (and its probably all my fault)
My house isn’t clean enough.
My kids aren’t healthy eaters like all my friends kids.

And then the mom guilt to top it off! 

I didn’t listen enough.
I yelled too much.
I didn’t play enough.
I lost my temper too easily.
I wasn’t there enough, etc etc. 

The list goes on and on.  The thoughts go in and out all day long if we are not careful.  And if we’re really negligent of our thought life, we begin to believe these things are actually true.

And this is exactly where the enemy wants us to be.  He wants us wallowing in a pile of self-guilt and doubt and self-condemnation about who we are so deep that we forgot who we even are and how to even live and enjoy our lives.  He’ll even take a good quality about you and make you believe its a quality we need to feel bad about.  Let me give you one example of how this was playing out in my own thought life; For a long time I was thinking I was too organized and I cleaned too much and that would somehow make my kids perfectionists and I needed to change that about myself.  I believed this for many years until I wrote down the truth: I like things to be clean and organized and it makes me feel good when things aren’t messy and chaotic.  Its also a good skill to teach my children to be organized and tidy too.  I don’t have a housekeeper so I do have to clean a lot when my kids are around but I still love on them unconditionally and spend as much time with them as I can.

When negative thinking tells us we are unable and unworthy of our jobs as moms, God tells us he uniquely designed us this way and he can use our gifts in the lives our children.

But for Jesus, who says we are chosen, forgiven, called, perfectly designed by him for a purpose.  He uniquely designed us to be the mother of our children.  He chose us for this job.  He sees past ALL of our mistakes, he only sees the good.  We just have to figure out what that good is and hold tight to it.  (The belt of truth - Ephesians 6:14)

It is time, mama.  To end this relentless mom guilt, negative thinking, constant self-doubting and self-critical self talk.  I am challenging you today to re-frame your thought life and grab a hold of your identity, in three ways:

1. Write down a list of every single negative thought about yourself and call it out as a LIE and challenge it with the opposite, the TRUTH.  And don’t just stop there.  But go one step further and promise yourself that the next time this lie or negative thinking comes into your head, you will replace it with the truth that you wrote down on that piece of paper.

2. To print out these truth affirmations somewhere where you will see them every single morning and read them out loud to yourself, even if you don’t believe them to be truth in the moment
   
   I am Loved, Enough, Seen, Good, Able through Christ, Forgiven, Chosen, Called, Beautiful, Perfectly Designed, Righteous, Approved, Whole

3. On the back, I challenge you to write down at-least TEN things about yourself that are good identifiers of you.  Descriptors that make you uniquely you!  (i.e. good mother, daughter, lover of cooking or fashion, a visionary, etc)

   
   The mind is a powerful place, my friends! If we can shift our thinking, we can experience more freedom in joy and peace in our parenting of our kids.
   
   Identity Scriptures:
   “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”  Proverbs 4:23
   ”Casting down imaginations (thoughts), and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” 2 Corinthians 10:5
   "Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”  Proverbs 18:21
   ”I have set before you LIFE or DEATH, blessing or cursing, therefore CHOOSE LIFE so that both you and your descendants may LIVE.”  Duet 30:19
   ”For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7

I have uploaded this FREE IDENTITY CARD to my website just for your, mama! You can find it right here in the Online Shop!