On Mother’s Day, Rinse and Repeat with Truth

As the mum to four sons, I’ve tackled a lot of tough stains in my mothering career, but no one had ever embedded Slime¹ in my living room carpet—until this year. Full disclosure, our rug has a floral pattern, and this (combined with my slipshod housekeeping practices) allowed the Slime to pass as a “leaf” for weeks until one day I took a closer look. A quick scrape with my fingernail revealed glitter, and the search for a solvent² for Slime began.

It turns out that scrubbing baking soda into the crusty mess begins to break it up, and then spraying it with white vinegar creates a foam that eventually dissolves it. I used a brush to scrub the spot, but here’s the main point: while the ingredients were important, it was repetition that saved the day. With every application and every scrubbing session, there was less solid matter, less color, and finally only the remnant of a pale blue stain.

Rinse and Repeat!

On the second or third round of scrubbing, the connection landed in my brain:

This is why we keep coming back to scripture!
This is why we must return every day, several times a day, to the truth!
I need regular (and frequent) applications of cleansing truth!

As mothers, as women, as grace-dependent creatures, we rely on the cleansing properties of God’s Word as it removes the gunk, as it scrubs away the Slime that the culture leaves in our thoughts and our habits. And since we are constantly swimming in lies, we constantly need the truth before our eyes, in our ears, and in our minds to counteract the Slime.

As grace-dependent creatures, we rely on the cleansing properties of scripture to remove cultural gunk from our thoughts and habits. We constantly swim in lies, so we constantly need the truth before our eyes, in our ears and our minds

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Rinse and repeat with Psalm 139:7 when you feel lonely in your parenting life:

“Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?”

It’s reassuring to me that, with all my inattentive ways and chronic distraction, when I manage to turn my face toward God, God has already turned toward me.

Rinse and repeat with 2 Peter 1:5-7 when you are believing the lie that it’s “too late” to establish godly habits in your home:

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”

This is a recipe for incremental discipleship in simple, orderly steps, like teaching our kids how to make spaghetti sauce. How can we communicate the truth we believe in a way that will not be forsaken by our children and grandchildren? One verse, one thought, one day of godly living at a time.

Start today.

Rinse and repeat with 2 Corinthians 5:17 to eradicate the stained thinking that you are defined by your past:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

When you are suffering from regret over bad decisions or the consequences of unwise choices, remember that the God’s-eye-view of your life includes a new heart and a new way. His indwelling Spirit will empower you to live before your family in holiness and purity.

Rinse and repeat with Isaiah 40:31 when you’ve run out of strength before you’ve run out of day:

“They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
    they shall walk and not faint.”

Take a breath. There are a multitude of ways to be a good parent, and God will walk alongside you as he molds your unique personality and set of gifts into the mother your children need you to be as you trust him.

From the media, from our friends and our colleagues, we are saturated in stories, stories about what a “good mother” does, what it means to have “a good life,” and what success looks like. Let’s make it our goal to be saturated in a better story that comes from God’s Word, the only source of reliable truth.

Elisabeth Elliot said it beautifully:

“Stay in the presence of God. Hold to his written Word and hold yourself before it. You have God’s unwavering attention.” Elisabeth Elliot

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Holding You in the Light,

1. Slime is a mixture of household items that come together to create a polymer substance that acts like both a solid and a liquid, depending on how you play with it. It’s stretchier than Play-Doh, and kids love it. ↩︎
2. If you have a Slime problem too, CLICK on this link to watch the video I found. ↩︎

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CLICK HERE to read my most recent newsletter where you’ll be given the opportunity to subscribe. I’m committed to the truth that women can become confident followers of God and students of his Word, and I want to help you along that path.

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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash