Soul Care for Exhausted Young Mothers

00:00:00.000 | Well, we get a steady stream of questions from mothers of young kids like this one from

00:00:07.780 | a listener named Beth.

00:00:09.180 | "Dear Pastor John, my husband and I are new parents to a two-month-old son.

00:00:13.380 | Caring for him has been joyful and exhausting.

00:00:16.020 | I can barely concentrate on anything I used to, but I need the Lord more than ever to

00:00:20.620 | sustain me.

00:00:22.120 | What counsel do you give new mothers on continuing their walk with God?"

00:00:26.700 | Well, I'm not a mother, never have been, but I lived with one for 47 years.

00:00:36.900 | I still live with one.

00:00:39.780 | And I watched her be a young mother with five children, four of them born into the family,

00:00:48.300 | one of them carried into the family at eight weeks.

00:00:53.200 | And I do try to read my Bible with an eye to what is helpful for moms and dads and everybody

00:00:58.660 | else.

00:00:59.660 | So here are a few pieces of counsel from experience and from the Word, and they may not be the

00:01:06.000 | most important, but they're off my prayerful front burner.

00:01:10.580 | Number one, never lose sight, Beth, never lose sight of the fact that your walk with

00:01:19.620 | God is as essential for the good of your child as is your milk or the formula that you may

00:01:32.460 | be giving him.

00:01:34.500 | Children do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of

00:01:39.220 | God.

00:01:40.220 | If you lose your communion with God, you will lose not only a source of strength for the

00:01:48.460 | sake of parenting, but you will lose the very thing you want most to impart to this child.

00:01:58.340 | And you want him to know God more than you want him to live, namely a relationship with

00:02:05.180 | God.

00:02:07.060 | You want him to taste and see that God will be sufficient to meet all his needs, including

00:02:13.940 | his needs for his own parenting.

00:02:16.460 | And if you lose God while parenting, the very thing you want to give him most you have lost.

00:02:23.640 | So that's how important it is for you to fight for whatever it takes to maintain a sweet,

00:02:32.820 | growing, satisfying walk with your God.

00:02:37.740 | Number two, don't let this little boy become a little emperor.

00:02:45.220 | I see far too many parents who are dominated by their children, out of control on airplanes,

00:02:52.060 | out of control in restaurants, out of control in the mall.

00:02:55.660 | All the trouble that these parents have spared themselves at home by not disciplining comes

00:03:00.620 | back on their own heads in public, and it will come back with a vengeance on their children's

00:03:06.180 | heads later in life.

00:03:09.260 | Children are designed, intended by God to be submissive and to be obedient to their

00:03:18.020 | parents.

00:03:19.300 | They are not intended to dominate the house, dominate relationships, dominate when company

00:03:25.020 | comes over.

00:03:27.940 | And it's important for them to learn this early, because if they think they are the

00:03:33.340 | center of the world, it will be hard to break them of this destructive illusion later on.

00:03:42.540 | Practically, that means that the child doesn't so rule your schedule that you don't have

00:03:51.540 | time for what you need to do for your own soul.

00:03:56.140 | He does not need your ever-present attention.

00:04:00.660 | You can show him lavish attention and provide him with all the affection and touch he needs

00:04:06.740 | without training him that you have to respond to every time he has a peep in his crib.

00:04:15.860 | God loves us lavishly, and as part of that love, he makes sure we know we're not the

00:04:23.620 | center of the universe.

00:04:24.620 | That's what love does.

00:04:27.500 | Let your child become secure not in your ever-present hovering, but in the certainty that you always

00:04:37.820 | return in love.

00:04:40.980 | Number three, turn all your practical mothering into worship.

00:04:46.200 | Make the food, change the diapers, push the stroller, whatever you do, whether you eat

00:04:50.260 | or drink or play peekaboo with your baby, do all to the glory of God.

00:04:56.140 | And that means, I think, practically, as you're doing it, all these things, hundreds of them.

00:05:02.820 | Number one, depend upon the sustaining, empowering, guiding grace of God.

00:05:08.580 | Two, give thanks for all the blessings of this child and your strength to care for him.

00:05:14.220 | Three, be amazed at the miracle that he is and what he's becoming and turn your amazement

00:05:20.140 | into praise.

00:05:21.460 | Four, when you become irritable, confess it and honor God with your confession and

00:05:29.860 | your reception of promised forgiveness and constantly pray, pray, pray.

00:05:36.740 | That's how you make your days an act of worship.

00:05:40.380 | And then there may not be in your mind such a huge gulf between tending to your child

00:05:49.580 | and tending to your soul.

00:05:52.500 | Number four, stay in church and be involved with other people.

00:05:59.740 | Beware of withdrawing into solitude with the child.

00:06:04.780 | You need other people.

00:06:06.700 | The Bible makes that plain, especially in 1 Corinthians 12.

00:06:10.700 | And that need doesn't go away just because children come into the house.

00:06:15.240 | So strap that baby on and be out and doing with other people, especially be in worship

00:06:23.860 | and be in fellowship around God's word.

00:06:28.180 | I can remember 44 years ago with our first child, Karsten, born in Germany.

00:06:36.460 | And as soon as we brought that chubby little beached whale home and tried to learn how

00:06:47.360 | to be parents, as soon as we got him home, we went straight to our Friday night small

00:06:52.480 | group meeting, which we did every Friday night while we were in Germany.

00:06:55.640 | It was our lifeline because our church life wasn't as good as we'd want it to be, but

00:07:01.840 | we had a small group.

00:07:03.120 | So we would get there early in the evening.

00:07:05.520 | The baby would either have already eaten or we would feed him there while everybody else

00:07:09.040 | was eating.

00:07:10.040 | Then when it was time to study and pray, we would lay him down, tummy down, put on a double

00:07:16.880 | bed, put a pillow on four sides of him, pat his bottom and walk out of the room and leave

00:07:21.920 | him there for the next three hours.

00:07:24.400 | And then we would take the bus home.

00:07:25.720 | We had no car in Germany and put him to bed at home at 11 o'clock.

00:07:31.020 | And he never woke up between seven in the morning usually, or if he was very young,

00:07:37.480 | yes, he would have to wake up and eat for a while.

00:07:40.580 | So don't let the baby slow you down.

00:07:44.200 | Do what you need to do for your own souls.

00:07:47.200 | Number five, negotiate with your husband to take turns in getting up in the middle of

00:07:52.680 | the night.

00:07:53.680 | He should know you need sleep as much as he does.

00:07:57.080 | God's ideal for child rearing is two parents.

00:08:00.840 | There's a reason for that.

00:08:02.660 | So tell your husband that I said he should help you.

00:08:07.780 | Make room in your schedule not only for rest, but also for reading.

00:08:11.440 | And that leads me to the last thing I want to say.

00:08:16.280 | Read Bible-saturated books, and the most Bible-saturated book is the Bible, but read others as well,

00:08:23.840 | maybe audio books while you're working.

00:08:27.040 | And the reason is this, the book of Proverbs begins, chapter one, verse eight, "Hear, my

00:08:34.040 | son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching."

00:08:44.120 | Your responsibility is to pour glorious, wonderful teaching about God and His ways and His world

00:08:53.040 | into the mind of this little child.

00:08:55.240 | So don't fail the child by failing to read and grow in what you need to teach him about

00:09:03.800 | God and about life.

00:09:06.500 | So I pray that the Lord will give you the strength and the wisdom that you need to take

00:09:14.160 | up this perhaps greatest of all tasks, raising this child in the nurture and discipline of

00:09:22.800 | the Lord.

00:09:23.800 | Amen.

00:09:24.800 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:09:25.800 | And if you're a dad, be sure to check out one of my favorite APJ episodes of all time,

00:09:30.480 | titled "Dad's Role in Homemaking," which is episode number 255 on leading the family into

00:09:36.560 | joy.

00:09:37.560 | It is so good, episode 255.

00:09:39.760 | And as you can hear, we're still working through some audio issues on Pastor John's end, but

00:09:43.360 | I think we may have them fixed.

00:09:45.280 | So thank you for your patience over the last couple of weeks.

00:09:48.480 | We appreciate it.

00:09:49.480 | You can subscribe to our audio feeds and search our episode archive and even reach us by email

00:09:53.480 | with a difficulty you may be facing in life.

00:09:55.440 | Do all of that through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:10:01.080 | I am your host, Tony Reinke.

00:10:02.520 | We'll be back on Friday, Lord willing.

00:10:04.960 | We'll see you then.

00:10:05.520 | [End of Audio]

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Soul Care for Exhausted Young Mothers

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