It was a three mile run, shoulder to shoulder with hopefuls like me, tasting the dust of the course in my mouth, mentally counting the time and distance. By the time it was over, I was exhausted. Was I a runner?
I wasn’t even in the race! I was a mom cheering on the sidelines.
Being a mom who cheers
Motivated by a full heart, moms clap at music recitals, admire primitive artwork, freeze on soccer fields, and keep the stop watch at the track. No one better cheers better than a mom.
Being a mom who hurts
But not all moms. Sometimes above the chatter at the finish line, a voice of disappointment and degradation is heard. I heard them this season. Sometimes a mom doesn’t have the “teaching of kindness” on her tongue (Prov. 31: 26) and fails to “open her mouth in wisdom.” Instead, she lashes out with toxic words of her own embarrassment. Her child discovers the painful truth that Mom wasn’t really cheering for him at all.
Jacob ran past my place on the sideline as I strained to be heard above the crowd, “You can pull ahead, Jake. Run hard!” A few steps away down the line, an opposing fan shouted straight at my son, “Jake, there’s NO WAY you can pull ahead!” Our children need to hear more of our words of blessing to outweigh the words of attack they will hear.
After the race, he admitted that he heard us both, but I like to think my voice was the one that resonated as he ran on and gave the race his all.
Why moms need to cheer
There will be enemies all along the sidelines of life to taunt our children, to shout messages of defeat, to cry out opposition.
Every child longs to hear his mom cheer, because she has the capacity to cheer like no other, to inspire him to press on and be his greatest. After all, God designed mothers to be a source of comfort to their young, to deliver His love through her arms, gaze, and words. Let’s hear it FROM mom, because her cheers are packed with power!
To hear words of accusation, charges of inadequacy, and complaints from a mother’s voice is to cut a child to the quick.
The Psalmist describes his quieted spirit like “a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me” (Psalm 131:2).
God compares Himself as Comforter to a mother-comforter, “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you …” (Isaiah 6:13).
When a child turns his eyes and strains his ears, hoping for reassurance in the midst of life’s challenges, God wants a mother to respond as the comforter He created her to be.
- What does your child hear you saying from the sidelines of his sport?
- What does your child hear you saying from the sidelines of his life?
- If you’ve been a mom with words that hurt, will you start to change that today?
- Are you thankful for a mother or a mentor in your life who cheered you on?
By Julie Sanders from Come Have a Peace
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