Many Thursdays online are often called “TBT” or throw-back-Thursdays, and it’s no different here. I usually try to find a favorite nugget of truth or inspiration from my archives or elsewhere on the Web to share with you. Tuesday’s post about my report-card-day letter seemed to strike a chord with so many of you that I wanted to follow that up with a little mom-group-hug. So today I’m borrowing a note from Anita Renfroe about mom mistakes that particularly resonated with me. I hope it encourages you as well…

The woman to be admired and praised is the woman who lives in the Fear-of-God. Give her everything she deserves! Festoon her life with praises! – Proverbs 31:30-31

If you have spent your adult life trying to live up to the mothering standard set in the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs (and I know some women do), you might as well just go ahead and take up permanent residence in the I-Can’t-Quite-Measure-Up Lane. We are left with the impression that this sort of mother in the Approved Standard Version — family centered, good business women, great cook, generous, prepared, discreet, praiseworthy, wise, and beautiful.

This is precisely why I am glad the Bible gives us pictures of other kinds of mothers as well – like Eve, who made the monumental, mind-blowing, affects-everybody-forever mistake or Rebekah, who schemed and connived to push her ‘favorite’ son ahead of his brother. She reminds us that it is a dangerous thing to use maternal power for manipulation.

These moms reveal to us that mother-love is fierce and stubborn to a fault — even wrong-headed sometimes. We do right things for wrong reasons and wrong things because we think everyone needs our help. When you look at the moms in the Bible, say a silent prayer of thanks that these women are included alongside the Oracle of Lemuel in Proverbs 31 to bring snapshots of reality and spiritual caution cones to our journey.

– Anita Renfroe (If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother)

Well if that’s not inspiring, I don’t know what is! I mean come on… we may think we’re terrible mothers, especially if we feel like we’ve screwed up in some way, shape or form, but have any of us made a mistake so terrible it affected ALL OF MANKIND?! I think not ;-).

So keep going fellow mom, because we’re [still] not there yet…