Motherhood and Mirrors: Balancing Motherhood and Self-Reflection

Posted on February 15, 2024  •  3 minutes  • 557 words

But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act - they will be blessed in their doing. James 1:22-25

    This is a fairly straightforward message, and really sums up the heart of James. Actions are more important than words. Faith and belief result in action. In these specific verses, it means not just hearing and looking, but also doing.
    This means self-examination. It means humility. It means truly knowing yourself, and changing your behavior as a result. James uses the metaphor of looking into a mirror and then walking away and not forgetting what you saw.     As mothers, that might sound not just intimidating, but also time-consuming. We’re often really busy, we don’t often have time to just sit and reflect. In my current stage of motherhood (at the time of writing my kids are 6, 4, and just turned 1), I don’t have a whole lot of extra time in the day. So sitting down and finding time to reflect on myself, how I’m doing and feeling, and how I’m parenting my kids, is hard to come by. At the same time, being an anxious mom, I feel like I have a constant running commentary in my head on how I could be doing a better job. It’s a constant push-pull of wanting to do better, but feeling like I don’t have the time to figure out how to do that.     If anything, I think I have the self-examination thing down pretty well at this point. It took me a while to get here, but I’m much less afraid now than I used to be to really open myself up and reflect on my flaws and failures. But finding the time to research and learn about what I can do about those things? That can be tricky.     The good news, as always, is that we don’t have to be perfect. James gives us a call to action, which is always a good reminder that our words and actions should reflect our beliefs about an unconditionally loving God. But God also sees us exactly as we are, flaws and all. So when we fail, we can apologize and try to do better as we move forward.

Go and Do

    This verse does not call us to be perfect, but it does call us to act. It calls for us, specifically, to persevere. To continue on even when things get hard. And mothering is hard. It gives us some of the hardest, most complex moments of our lives. There are times when I literally just have to take a step back and say, what in the world is going on? Even when we feel completely unprepared for what our children throw at us, we keep moving forward as best we can.     Remember that God is with you in those moments. God is with you when you fail and when you succeed. God is always besides you, saying, let’s get back up and try again.