Growing in Faith During Your Baby's First Year - a 6 Day DevotionalSample

God of Forgiveness Mom guilt— it’s real. Maybe you’ve never heard of it. Maybe you can’t shake it. But for many moms, that feeling of not being enough or doing enough is something she battles constantly. Here’s the good news. We serve a forgiving God. He’s big enough to help us when the guilt is legitimate and big enough to calm our fears when the guilt is false. When the guilt is real, when we’ve failed, we need to hear Nehemiah’s words: “You are a God of forgiveness, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness” (9:17 NASB 1995). We need to remember that gracious and forgiving are key attributes of God. But what if the feelings are based in unreasonable expectations? What about the mom who feels guilty for not holding her baby all the time? Or who worries that her older child will be scarred for life because Mom spends so much time nursing the new baby? God speaks into false guilt as well. John wrote, “If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything” (1 John 3:19–20 NIV). God is greater than our hearts. Ask Him to shine the truth into your heart and show you when you are heaping guilt on yourself that shouldn’t be there. Wherever you are today, know that our forgiving God can cleanse you of guilt, both real and false.