Title: Just What I Needed
Text: 2 Cor. 1:3-11
Purpose: Mother’s Day Message
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Introduction: Quotes from my daughter Brittney
Things I never thought I'd hear myself say:
1. Stop biting the dog!
2. Don't lick the windows!
3. Why is your ham and cheese between your toes?
4. Quit picking your brother’s nose
5. Don't put your carrots in your Bible!
6. Food doesn't belong on your feet!
7. Put your tongue back in your mouth! The cat doesn't need help licking herself, please don't help her!
8. Stop drooling all over my computer!
9. Why does the cat have cheese on her head?
10. Who poured their milk on the dog?
11. Why is there deodorant on the cat?
12. Who put tooth paste on the cat?
13. What was your hand doing in your mouth to where she would bite you?
14. No spoons in bed
15. Why did you sleep with a cantaloupe?
16. Why is there a banana peel in your bed?
17. The cat litter is not a sandbox!
(But motherhood is not always this way….)
When 'Super Mom' is super sad: Pressures haunt new parents
Aug. 19, 2014 at 9:20 AM
Alice Gomstyn: TODAY contributor
Rachel Hillestad hasn't perfected the art of French braiding her daughter's hair. She doesn't serve organic, free-range chicken for dinner. And for her four kids' first day of school, she didn't photograph them posing with cute chalkboards listing their ages and heights, as she saw some of her friends doing.
The Kansas City mom feels guilty about all of it — her perceived shortcomings as a parent. And because she has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, that guilt translates into torturing herself with the same self-critical thoughts over and over: "You're not a good mom," and "Your kids don't know you love them."
Rachel Hillestad says the pressure to be a Super Parent makes her hear critical thoughts like "You're not a good mom."
"It's basically just a lot of negativity in a loop tape. To get that to stop with OCD is very hard," she said.
New research suggests a dark side to the “Super Parent” — pressure so great it can create stress that contributes to mental disorders in moms and dads. The new study focuses on factors before and immediately after birth, like the pressure to breast-feed, but experts say similar pressure can extend well past the diaper years.
"It's always stressful to be a Super Parent. Stress is always a risk factor for depression and anxiety, and it's especially stressful if people don't have the supports that they need," Carrie Wendel-Hummell, a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Kansas, told TODAY.
From the latest bestselling parenting book to your local PTA president's Instagram feed, it's never been easier to find examples of what raising children should look like. And while that virtual peer pressure can prove intimidating for the average parent, those who've experienced mental illness — which affects nearly 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. — speak of consequences more dire than just bruised egos.
"The Pinterest society of looking at all these pictures of people who have perfectly decorated homes and reading on Facebook about children who are always perfectly dressed and way ahead of all developmental milestones — it puts a lot of pressure of mothers, especially those who feel vulnerable and not fully confident in themselves," said Katherine Stone, the founder of Postpartum Progress, a blog and nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness of maternal mental illness.
Courtesy Katherine Stone
Katherine Stone overcame postpartum depression but says she has continued to struggle with the pressure from "mom rock stars."
Stone speaks from personal experience. After her own recovery from postpartum depression, the Atlanta mom continued to battle anxiety as her children grew older. One summer, she suffered an anxiety attack after feeling "overwhelmed by this idea that I should have activities for them all day."
She wrote about the attack on her blog, describing how her husband had to shoo their two children out of the room as she collapsed into heaving sobs.
"I look at the moms who celebrate summer. Who have all sorts of plans and activities. Who home school. Who do crafts. They’re like mom rock stars. And I feel ashamed. So ashamed and defective that I’m not them," she wrote.
It's not just moms who are burdened by "rock star" pressure. Lorne Jaffe, a stay-at-home father in Queens, N.Y., admits to succumbing. It happens, for instance, when he learns that another father in his circle of friends has constructed a movie-themed Bento box lunch for his child.
Courtesy Lorne Jaffe
Lorne Jaffe has struggled with depression since childhood and says that seeing "perfect" Dads sometimes makes him despair and withdraw.
"I look at that and go, 'I gave my child grapes and he does this,'" said Jaffe, whose struggle with depression dates back to childhood. "When you have depression, it's about constantly battling the negative thoughts and constantly battling the comparison. And it's so tiring."
Jaffe says he sometimes feels so overwhelmed by those comparisons that he withdraws from his daughter to spend time alone. Hillestad says that she, too, at times withdraws from her children as she grapples with feelings of inadequacy. As someone who strives to be a better mother, it's the opposite of what she wants to be doing.
"I'm sitting here thinking about what a bad mom I am when I should be playing with my kids and engaged with my kids," she said.
Researchers in recent years have implicated social media in spurring envy and depression. Hillestad, Jaffe and other parents confirm that Facebook and Pinterest account for much of their exposure to maddeningly unattainable images of parental perfection.
Trina Baker Photography
Sara Vancil says one of the most damaging beliefs is that "unless you're happy 100 percent of the time, you're not a good mom."
Wendel-Hummell said that some new parents are especially vulnerable to the idea that they should be "Super Parents" because they read up and come up with “idealized but unrealistic expectations for themselves." Among those expectations: that new parents should be happy.
"Even if the message from social media or your friend or world at large is more nuanced, what you hone in on is that belief that unless you're happy 100 percent of the time, you're not a good mom," said Sara Vancil, a mother who participated in the study.
Stone, for her part, says she's come to terms with the fact that she'll never be the mom who entertains her children with intricate arts and crafts projects filling up Pinterest boards. Instead, she takes pride in the things she is good at.
"I'm a really good bedtime reading mom. I am great at bedtime," she said. "Anything related to glue and pipe cleaners is not going to happen."
Her healthy attitude is good for her kids, too, she said.
"This idea that we should be trying to be and do all things for our kids ends up making us not very good parents because we're unhappy and miserable," she said. "Being happy and healthy is multitudes better for your children than you attempting to prove you can do everything perfectly." (1)
TEXT: 2 Cor. 1:3-11
Our Daily bread: Just What I Need
As I stood in the back of the room at a senior citizens’ center in Palmer, Alaska, listening to my daughter’s high school choir sing “It Is Well with My Soul,” I wondered why she, the choir director, had chosen that song. It had been played at her sister Melissa’s funeral, and Lisa knew it was always tough for me to hear it without having an emotional response.
My musings were interrupted when a man sidled up next to me and said, “This is just what I need to hear.” I introduced myself and then asked why he needed this song. “I lost my son Cameron last week in a motorcycle accident,” he said.
Lord, help me to see where help is needed.
Wow! I was so focused on myself that I never considered the needs of others, and God was busy using that song exactly where He wanted it to be used. I took my new friend Mac, who worked at the center, aside, and we talked about God’s care in this toughest time in his life.
All around us are people in need, and sometimes we have to set aside our own feelings and agendas to help them. One way we can do that is to remember how God has comforted us in our trials and troubles “so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (2 Cor. 1:4). How easy it is to be engrossed in our own concerns and forget that someone right next to us might need a prayer, a word of comfort, a hug, or gift of mercy in Jesus’ name. (2)
Question: So what is it that you just need?
Two words that continue to appear in this passage are (trouble/affliction) and comfort.
AFFLICTION/TROUBLE
1. It is whatever ties knots in your stomach and makes you feel anxious or troubled about what lies ahead.
2. It is what mates for hectic days and sleepless nights
3. It gnaws continually at your mind and threatens your well being
4. It refuses to go away and leave you alone
5. It depresses you and darkens the future with forebodings of disaster
6. It is that pressure, stress, and we all live in it.
COMFORT
1. It’s more than just cheer or friendly word of encouragement
2. It means basically “to strengthen”
What Paul experienced was the strengthening of God to give him a peaceful, restful spirit to meet the pressure and the stress with which he lived.
It’s amazing how many people are dreading facing their daily lives because they feel pressured and stressful and tied up in knots and yet they never avail themselves of God’s provision for that kind of pressure.
PRAYER
Do you know how most people pray in moments like this? They pray for the pressure or the problem to be taken away. All their hopes are for escape, somehow, and all their reactions are either worry or a murmuring, complaining spirit, anger and fear.
But listen to what Paul does: Verse Three
“All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort.”
a. He praises God for the circumstances of his life even though they are afflictions
b. He calls God the “Father of mercies and God of all comfort.”
c. He sees God’s hand as having sent these very things into his life, therefore he never prays to have them removed so that he might escape from them.
d. He sees them as opportunities for the release of the strength of God.
What do I just need? (3)
#1 God gives us opportunities to see the release of his strength
What situation in your life do you need to release to the Lord and ask him to show you and to give to you his strength for the situation?
How does one ever go about finding comfort from God, strength from God if we are not under any pressure or stress? It takes that to discover what God can do.
Verse 5: “For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ.”
KEY POINT: The strengthening is exactly equal to the pressure.
#2: God can use you to help others
Verse 4 “He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”
I think the older you grow as a Christian the more this becomes true.
Remember that when you’re in the midst of sufferings, there is always someone watching. Watching to see how you handle that which you are going through.
Sometimes we forget that others are watching us. When we give way to complaining and murmuring about our circumstances we are teaching them somehow that God is faithless, that the Scriptures are not true, that we can get no adequate support for what we are going through.
When we have sufferings to us they are often sent so that others watching us will know that they can be sustained.
That’s what Paul says to this church. “When I suffer, it is for your comfort; it is that you might see what God can do, and what he can take me through, he can take you through.”
KEY POINT: As you watch me, you will see how to handle this
Verse 6 “Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer.”
TRANSITION: Ok, Pastor, I get that there are opportunities for us to see the strength of God released. And I understand that what we go through can be an example for someone else. But right now I feel a bit overwhelmed.
Notice these last few verses: 8-10
“We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the providence of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raised the dead. And he did rescue us from the mortal danger, and he will rescue us again. We have place our confidence in him, and he will continue to rescue us.”
a. We felt overwhelmed
b. And because of that we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God. (learned)
c. Not only did he rescue us, he will do it again. (Experience)
d. Our confidence is in Him, and he will continue….
We don’t know exactly what Paul was going through, but it was extreme enough that he shares with us how dire it really was.
KEY POINT: Sometimes it takes extreme measures to teach us not to be self-reliant.
a. You would agree, that sometimes, the most painful parts of parenting is to watch your children go through some very painful lessons. But remember, God always teaches from a standpoint of love, never vindictiveness.
There come moments, that you finally realize that all you have left is to obey God. And that is what God has been waiting on.
#3. Learning to rely on God can be painful, but it doesn’t have to be
Do you see how Paul comes to a knowledge of a true Christian lifestyle? God delivered us—in the past; He is delivering us—in the present; He will deliver us—in the future.
Paul has learned to trust God to take him through whatever life throws at him, no matter what it is. Now that is a Christian lifestyle. Instead of like the world that constantly complains, murmurs and gripes, Paul learned to have confidence. It doesn’t mean that he didn’t experience things, but it does mean he learned how to handle it.
Last point: #4 We are not alone
Verse 11: “And you are helping us by praying for us. Then many people will give thanks because God has graciously answered so many prayers for our safety.”
You can’t keep things to yourself. This isn’t to say that you sing, “Gloom, despair, and agony on me. Deep dark depression has fallen upon me.”
No, it means that we share in each other’s lives. When we share it, others can help carry the load. They can help to pray, and give comfort and support. Why? Because they too have gone through similar things.
KEY POINT: God has allowed us to learn the amazing secret of inner strength.
Conclusion: (Happy Other Mother’s Day)
I loved reading the book, Are You My Mother? - by P.D. Eastman, to my kids when they were younger. (4) (Lee Wolfe Blum)
The sweet tiny bird asking all the animals, “Are you my mother?” Not sure where he matched up, who would provide the nurturing he needed. And what we see often in the animal stories, is when the mother dies or isn’t present, another mother steps in. Even if it is a different species, the nurture hole is filled by another mother.
With mother’s day approaching I often feel a bit of anxiety regarding this holiday.
The stories are sweet and gooey as are the cards. I stood in the Target isle this week, the cards glaring back at me, unable to find one that fit my story. The cards were pink and yellow with lines like, You are my best friend! Thank you for being my rock.
My mother story isn’t conventional as many aren’t. My mothers and my personality were like oil and water. From a young age our personalities, our expectations of each other and our views on life contrasted. A consistent friction between the two of us, leaving both of us wanting for more. I can therapize and diagnose, and we did all of that. We have found our way now, but it was nothing like Hallmark writes in greeting cards.
And yet, a tremendous blessing emerged from this relationship that left me searching.
One that captured the other story of mothering.
God knew the needs of the child he created, me. He knew that my emptiness and needs my mother was unable to meet could be provided elsewhere. And he led me straight to them.
The other mothers.
Growing up in my family of 5, I was often referred to as, “the other child”. And this “other child” needed an “other mother.” I didn’t know this of course, but can only see in retrospect the women who flowed in and out of my life at just the right time. Three unique and timely relationships that provided exactly what I needed when I wasn’t getting it from my own home.
First there was my Young Life leader, Jill, in high school. A woman so encouraging and loving she exuded grace and kindness. While I awkwardly stumbled through the teenage years and achingly struggled with my fractured home life, I had a steady Jill cheerleading me on. A woman reminding me that God loved me, a woman believing that I could follow my dreams. A fuel to a spark that had begun to fade, she was exactly what I needed at exactly the right time.
In my twenties I was blessed to live with a family in Minnesota, and the mom, Judy, wrapped me into the fold as if I was one of her own. Her tender blue eyes calming an anxious and anorexic me. She took me into her home over and over when I fell on my face yet again. She was grace with skin on. A contrast in portraits of motherhood as I hadn’t known any other option than my own.
She offered me a different view of motherhood.
Ironically she was raising three boys, and I now have three of my own. To say that God knew what he was doing when I randomly stumbled upon this family is an understatement. Judy ushered me through my turbulent twenties and without her, I honestly don’t know if I would have made it.
As I began to recover from eating disorder God offered me another “other”. This was Jan. A therapist who passionately loved the Lord. Another tender hearted woman who wouldn’t let me get away with anything. A woman who helped me retrain my brain, to let go of the chaos, and who guided my husband and I into a stable relationship.
Because of these three women, Jill, Judy, and Jan (how funny they all start with “J”), my other mothers, I have come to believe that the women relationships in my life are crucial to my own growth, healing, and living. Because of these three women showing me the way, I am blessed to be surrounded with a gaggle of amazing, encouraging, and inspiring women in my tribe as I call them.
A season for all of it.
There was a season for my own mother, and then another for a different period of my life. I am grateful for every mother who led me to the next stage. These women, who plopped into my life at just the right time. What a gift, a treasure. And as I grow older I find, if I open my eyes and look around, God is still doing that.
Offering me others just when I need it. A sweet friend, a tender co-worker, or even a woman on the internet who can carry me through.
Mothering doesn’t always have to be only done by your blood mother, it can be done by the others too.
God does provide dear friends. Sometimes not in the traditional way that Hallmark tells us we are supposed to have it, but in just the right way. At just the right time. Women, we need each other.
Thank you to all my other mothers on this mother’s day. I celebrate my own mother for setting me free so I could experience these others, I celebrate you, my others, for speaking into my life, and I celebrate God for providing me with just what I needed.
Happy Other Mother’s Day.
More than Just a Mom
You have a God who knows you. Who calls you by name. Who calls you His own. And you are of irreplaceable value to Him.
He sees you doing the most noble of all things -- doing your best to love the small humans He has entrusted to you. Sit with that for a minute. God entrusted small humans to YOU.
So whatever laundry sits piled up in your hallway, and whatever dishes remain unwashed in your sink, and whatever classes you forgot to sign your child up for, and whatever Pinterest food you cannot bake, please give yourself some grace.
And maybe even pray this prayer penned by Brennan Manning: "Lord, when I feel that what I'm doing is insignificant and unimportant, help me to remember that everything I do is significant and important in your eyes, because you love me and you put me here, and no one else can do what I am doing in exactly the way I do it."
Mom, you are a child of God. Seen, known, and loved. You are more than enough. You are of irreplaceable value in the life of your child, and in the eyes of God. (5)
That’s just what I needed!
Footnotes
1. http://www.today.com/parents/when-super-mom-super-sad-pressures-haunt-new-parents-1D80081732
2. http://odb.org/ May 3, 2016
3. Summarization of thoughts from Ray Stedman: Why Does it Hurt So Much
4. http://leewolfeblum.com/?p=1992
5. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/05/08/mothers-day-2015-no-mother-is-just-mom.html
