For a long time, I thought being a sacrificial mother meant giving more and more of myself until I often felt there was nothing left to give.  

Somewhere along the way, I picked up the belief that putting myself last was simply part of being a good mom.  Underneath that was another belief I didn’t always recognize: if my children struggled, hurt, wandered, or made choices I wouldn’t choose for them, maybe I hadn’t done enough.

That kind of thinking can leave a mother carrying an enormous amount of what we call, “mom guilt”.

So recently, instead of asking how I could sacrifice more of myself, I started asking a different question:

What does the Bible actually show us about sacrificial motherhood?

And what I found brought me a lot of relief.

Sacrifice Doesn’t Always Mean Doing More

When I looked at the mothers Scripture gives us, I noticed that some of their greatest acts of sacrifice weren’t about endlessly doing more for their children, they were about surrender.

Jochebed protected Moses for as long as she could. She hid him, cared for him, prepared a basket for him, and did everything within her ability to keep him safe, but eventually she reached the end of what she could control.

She had to release him.

That didn’t mean she stopped loving him or stopped being his mother. She had simply reached the place where her ability to protect him ended and she had to entrust his protection to God.

Then there’s Hannah. Samuel was the child she had desperately prayed for, and yet she followed through on her promise to dedicate him to the Lord. Still, Scripture gives us this beautiful little detail that Hannah continued making him a robe each year and bringing it to him.

Her surrender didn’t erase her motherhood.  She could release control and remain connected.

And then there’s Mary.

Mary loved Jesus fiercely as His mother, yet she also had to accept that His life and mission ultimately belonged to the purposes of the Father. Eventually she stood near the cross in a place of suffering she could not stop, change, or fix.

Sometimes loving faithfully means remaining present in something we cannot control.

When Caring Turns Into Controlling

This is where motherhood gets difficult because our children’s pain affects us.

Their heartbreak, failures, and rejection affects us. Sometimes it feels almost physical because we love them so deeply so of course we want to step in.

We want to prevent the disappointment and fix their mistakes before the consequences really stick.  If we could go to the ends of the earth to make the road a little smoother for them we would!

But not every struggle is something we are supposed to remove.

There are things our children may need to walk through in order to grow into the people God is calling them to become and sometimes the hardest part of motherhood is discerning the difference between what our child truly needs from us and what we are trying to fix because we cannot bear to watch them hurt.

Maybe Mom Guilt Is Asking Us to Release Something

I also started thinking differently about mom guilt because perhaps that uncomfortable feeling isn’t evidence that we’ve failed our children.

Instead it may simply be the discomfort of realizing:

I cant prevent every hurt or fix every mistake.

I cant control the outcome and I was not meant to do in my child’s life what only God can do.

But don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean we become passive.

We still mother, love, and nurture in the way God calls us to with healthy boundaries and by speaking life over our children.

But biblical surrender recognizes the boundary between what is mine, what is theirs, and what belongs to God and that distinction becomes especially important as our children get older. Teenagers and adult children still need our love and wisdom, but the kind of control we had when they were little was never meant to last forever.

And if you’re the mother of a prodigal child, surrender can feel even more costly.

Because you can pray and love them and show up 110% but…

you can’t repent for your child or believe for your child. And you cant force the work that only God can do in their heart.

A Different Kind of Sacrifice

Maybe the question isn’t:

Have I sacrificed enough for my children?

but it’s:

What am I still trying to control in my child’s life that God is asking me to release to Him?

Jochebed surrendered what she could no longer protect.

Hannah surrendered what she deeply desired.

Mary remained faithful in what she could not fix.

Our children have been entrusted to us to love, nurture, guide, protect, and prepare but they were never ours to possess.  Sacrificial motherhood isn’t endlessly laying down more and more of yourself so that your children never struggle.

Sometimes the sacrifice is faithfully doing what God has given you to do as their mother and then having the courage to release what you cant do into His hands.

Because there is a profound difference between giving up on your child and giving your child over to God.

If this is a tension you’ve felt in your own motherhood, listen to this week’s episode of the Worthy & Whole Podcast:

Entrusting Your Children to God: Rethinking Sacrificial Motherhood 

Thanks for being here!

From your coach, 

LeighAnn

An Invitation

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