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Mommy Guilt: Keeping the Big Picture in Mind When Parenting · 5–Minute Parenting: Tips to Help You Raise Competent, Godly Kids.

• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of Five Minute Parenting.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited today to have a guest, Julie Zine Coleman.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: She's an award-winning author, speaker, and the managing editor for Advanced Writers and Speakers Association's devotional website, Arise Daily.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Julie holds a Master of Arts and Biblical Studies and she's authored several books.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I will list those in the show notes in her website so that you can go find out more about Julie.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Julie and her husband have four grown children and six grandchildren.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: So she is definitely qualified to speak on today's topic.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I love the topic.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Mommy guilt.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Keeping the big picture in mind when parenting.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: So welcome, Julie, and I'm excited to hear what you have to say.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Sandra.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And hello to all you out there.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm very happy to share one of my moments as a parent quite a long time ago now, because the child was in fourth grade and now she's 38.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been a while, but I remember the details a little bit.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just thinking, you know, when you're mother, guilt is kind of a state of being, you know.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Every time I think about my parenting, and I did my best, honest, but there are a whole lot of times where, you know, I wasn't very effective, or, you know, that things I regret, there's a thousand things I'd do differently if I could redo those years of raising children.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I certainly would pray for them more often.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'd spend more one-on-one time with them.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: We had four kids under the age of four at one point.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: So there wasn't a lot, there was a lot of uh not so much one-on-one, but herd raising.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, um, and I'd make them do more choice, all the things that I think about that I would, you know, do could go on forever.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: But a working mother has an extra portion of guilt because when you're trying to maintain a teaching career, which is heroic in itself, while raising a family was definitely a challenge.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes my children definitely got the short end of the stick.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like the year my daughter was in fourth grade, uh, one day her teacher came into the teacher's lounge, her name was Doris, and uh she at lunchtime, we were all sitting eating lunch, and she said, Julie, I want to share with you what Melanie gave as a prayer request this morning.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, uh oh, probably was not going to be good.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I braced myself with what was going to probably be humiliating information.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Would you please pray that my mom would cook us a homemade meal?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's been so long.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: The entire table erupted into laughter because most of us were working mothers, and everybody understood from personal experience that uh it was not going to be possible uh to be mother of the year and a teacher all at once.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that particular week, my husband was away on a business trip.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: So most nights we had stopped at McDonald's on the way home, so I didn't have to face cooking and homework and getting ready for the next school day uh while solo parenting.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I sat up straighter my hair.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: I said, and I promise, tonight I'm going to make meatloaf, potatoes, and a green bean casserole, comfort food.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: My days of being a bad mother are over, at least for this week.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that afternoon, unfortunately, there was a faculty meeting and um it went till 5 p.m.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I gathered up my papers from my desk and started down the hall to go home.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I stuck my hair, uh my my head into Doris's room and said, Hey Doris, keep praying for us.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to Wendy's.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we sure can all agree with you as my mom's.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: But and guilt, I think, well, maybe I'm I'm wrong, but I think that most of us mothers feel guilty, you know, what we could have done better and what we didn't do, what we should have done.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and most women actually, I know, exist in a state of guilty feelings because we can never do enough or do it well enough.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, what does the Bible have to say about guilt?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you might be surprised because guilt is never referred to in the Bible as a feeling.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: In scripture, guilt is a condition.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's the condition to which we were born.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: We inherited from our ancestor Adam when he sinned that day in the Garden of Eden.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And in Romans 5:18, it says, through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So one bite of the forbidden fruit, and we were all doomed.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: But thankfully, there's a second part to that verse.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Even so, through one act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, thanks to the sacrifice that Jesus made in our behalf, we were given justification from our guilty state.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, justification is actually a legal term, and it means declared innocent of all charges.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus suffered and died on the cross, the heavenly judge banged the gavel and those who believed in him were set free.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: So technically, we're not guilty anymore, at least in God's sight.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yet we do sometimes continue carrying the crushing weight of guilt on our shoulders.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one of the many benefits to salvation to believers is the fact that the Holy Spirit resides in us as a guarantee of our salvation, but he does more than inhabit us, he guides and he teaches us, and that includes letting us know when we're in the wrong.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Conviction for sin is a healthy thing.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: It promotes us to repentance and to make peace with those we've wronged.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: But once we have confessed the sin and if necessarily have gone to those we've offended, it's over.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Water under the bridge, time to move on.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yet we still may hold tight to the guilt, refusing to forgive ourselves.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, Satan loves this.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible even calls him the accuser.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Guilt is an extremely effective tool of his.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: It makes us focus on ourselves and our frailties instead of on Christ and His provision for our sin.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And guilt can be a paralyzing emotion.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're loath to repeat the same mistake, so in our shame, we stop trying.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: So to understand the difference between conviction and guilt is to understand where the source of it is.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: God does not condemn, God does not point because our sins have been paid for for now and for our future.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Done.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So who's doing that thought that's running through our heads when we feel guilty and condemned?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not God.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so the only other source is either our flesh or Satan.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: But God is not condemning us.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And our position is righteousness because we wear Jesus' righteousness.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: So be wise enough, moms, to see the difference between conviction, which is a healthy thing, and guilt, which is not.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And let that forgiveness that's been so freely given to us wash over you.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Bask in the grace of God because you are free, even if you eat at Wendy's.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I do have a verse I wanted to read.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the spirit of life and Jesus Christ has set you free from the law of sin and death.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's Romans 8, 1 to 2.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Those are just such great reminders.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Just for moms and anyone, any Christians.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we we do tend to feel guilty.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I really appreciate all that you shared in that verse.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: We really need to take that verse to heart and not keep going back and looking at all these things we think we would have done differently because God's covered them.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's funny that some of the things that I regret so much.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my kids were like, what?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: That happened?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they don't even remember.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm spending my time worrying about all this terrible thing that I did.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: I can clearly remember telling my husband at several points, yeah, they're gonna need therapy because of that.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: But by the way, they all turned out great.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that's wonderful.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord provided.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for being a guest on Five Minute Parenting.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Really, really enjoyed it today.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks again, Julie.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Sandra.