Monday Mama Muse :: Sophia

Monday Mama Muse

We share words of wisdom from a mama on Mondays to start our week with honest reflections from fellow mothers we adore on the journey of motherhood, self-care, and love.

The heart-felt message below is from Sophia of @cultivatemotherhood

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Grace always shocks, grace always stuns, grace is always what we need. It's what everyone groping around lost in the dark has to know. Turn toward grace and you turn on all the lights.” ~Ann Voskamp

Grace. It’s a word I am exploring in this season of motherhood. It all started when my husband and I decided to journey down the path of taking a hands-free / gentle parenting approach with our daughter Beatrice. My heart has been shaken and turned upside down with how much our words and behaviors affect the way our children see themselves and feel about who they are as human beings. Grace is a word I think of often and wish to enhance in my life as a wife, friend, and mother to my children. It's a truly beautiful and ardent word when you look up the true meaning. Grace is defined as: To honor or credit someone; to enhance, to be generous, helpful, and bestow favor upon people. Favor also means “the act of kindness beyond what is ‘usual’.” Did you grow up using the words favor and grace in this manner? Or did these words feel and mean something different to you? Grace - it always shocks, and it turns us toward the light.

As a mother it is often hard to give myself grace upon grace when I fall short, fail to reach my potential, or talk down to my children. In my day-to-day routine as a mother and wife, I find it easy to nitpick, find fault, and show my family how to do things ‘faster’ or ‘better’. We sometimes have this idea that it's easier to find blame than to fix hard situations ourselves, it's easier to demand correction rather than find connection, and it's easier to harden our words rather than soften. My heart is grateful that grace meets us right where we're at each and every day. Despite our behavior or actions, grace never leaves us behind but instead encourages us to keep going. Grace understands that a relationship with your child's heart is far more important and precious than a relationship with their behavior.

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