Excerpt from THRIVE AND SURVIVE, ZERO TO FIVE

In your effort to succeed at mothering, be sure to take advantage of your very best asset: the Lord. Remind yourself often that your children don’t really belong to you but to Him. After all, by the time you found out you were pregnant, He had already been secretly at work for many days.

According to the Bible, throughout those nine months God was quite active in your womb, establishing your child’s personality, will, temperament, and much more, by way of DNA. He was actively weaving your baby’s parts together, readying him for life on earth. Though God did include you in the process, the end result was really a compilation of His choices.

Once your baby is born, it doesn’t make sense that the Lord would step aside and let you own His project. He gave you a critical role to play as the mother, and His hope is high that you’ll invite Him to share in your efforts. He knows it’s a big job with far-reaching consequences, so He offers to help.

It makes perfect sense that God wants to share in the responsibility of raising His children. And on those days when the heavy emotional weight of motherhood settles over you, He wants to share in that too. As you manage your children day to day, the Lord gives you a wide berth to be as creative as you like. But it makes sense to bring Him into the entirety of your mothering, since He knows your children even better than you do.

He created each one to be exactly as they are, placing them into your care, not someone else’s. He equipped you with everything you need to raise them, and He believes you will do an excellent job. God sees every child as a major blessing, and He actually died to save them. Everything that happens to and around them is keenly important to Him.

So when you’re struggling with something, whatever it is, ask Him what you should do. He’s the Creator, and His supply of ideas never runs dry. If you ask, He’ll put one of them into your head. And because He has never failed, if you follow His instructions, that idea is bound to work.

SIDEBAR: WHEN YOU PRAY

• God hears your prayers
• God cares about ordinary things.
• God sees everything at all times.
• God usually requires you to wait for answers.
• God does answer your prayers.