You can find Part 1 of this post here.
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After our conversation, I went back to the drawing board to revise our daily schedule... the one I had  been half-heartedly following.  I spent too much time making it look cute as usual. :)  I'm pretty good at creating cute schedules, but my follow through is a bit lacking.

I do the same thing with organizers/planners.  Every season, I buy another pretty planner, I write in it for one week, and the remaining 51 weeks are left blank.

And... I do the same thing with office supplies!  I have a lot of pretty office supplies and file folders left unopened in a box in the bottom of my closet.

I'm tempted to get discouraged.  How very un-Proverbs 31 woman of me.  Wouldn't she follow her schedule, consult her detailed planner, and file away her paperwork in pretty little folders?  And I'm tempted to look across the internet into perfect little slices of other Mom's lives.  I mentally store the bits and pieces of all they've done well and I combine them to create a fictitious Super Mom who does it all.

I compare myself to her even though she doesn't exist.  I'm tempted to despair.

But what's the problem here?  How can we look at this through gospel lenses?

My problem is not my perceived failures as a Mom.  My problem is how I'm defining my identity.

If my identity lies in being the perfect Mom, that leaves me despairing and without hope because I can never be her no matter how long and hard I try.

Jesus is my identity, my place of rest, my only hope.  In my 31 years I have failed God miserably and will only continue to do so until my last breath.  But despite this, God showed me His incredible love by sending Jesus into the world to die for my sins.  I trust in Jesus and He has forgiven all of my sins past, present, and future.  Not only am I forgiven, He considers me not guilty, and God has pronounced me righteous with the very righteousness of Jesus!  {This is amazing to me!}  He looks upon me with love, compassion, and affection without even a hint of wrath mixed in.  What love!

I don't need to place my identity in being the perfect Mom.  Not only can I never live up to this standard, but Jesus doesn't require it of me.  His grace is freeing.  It is also the greatest motivator.  When I look to Him and remember His love for me, I want to be a better Mom.  And the only way I can be a better Mom is by looking to Christ and receiving the heart change I so desperately need that only He can provide.

I'm going to continue working on our schedule because it will be a blessing to my daughter and to our family.  But I cannot put my hope in that schedule or in anything else that Super Moms should do.  I've remembered my true identity.