Devotion:

I long to be a godly wife and mother, but my efforts to become this "ideal" woman stated in Proverbs can leave me grieved and depressed.

I felt especially defeated the year my youngest son started kindergarten. In Tennessee, kindergarteners follow a scattered schedule the first two weeks of school where half of the class attends one day and the rest comes the following day. It helps them adjust. For me it brought confusion.

On Tuesday, I took my son to school, kissed him good-bye, and headed home to work.

I was busy at the computer when the telephone interrupted my pace. "Hello?"

"Mrs. Campbell, this is Parker's teacher. I was wondering who would be picking him up from school today."

Stunned that I had forgotten my child, I jumped in the car and raced to the school. He stood on the sidewalk holding his teacher's hand with tears in his eyes and REJECTION stamped across his heart. I took him home, apologized profusely, and made his favorite meal for dinner. I felt like the worst mother ever.

Thursday, we returned to school. All was going well until I was, once again, interrupted by the phone. I had forgotten to pick up my child not once, but twice in the same week!

I sped to school on two wheels. This time he was standing with the room mother, who was obviously a true Proverbs 31 Woman. As she helped him buckle his seatbelt, I tried explaining myself.

"You're not going to believe this, but I did the same thing earlier this week."

"Yeah, I know." She replied bluntly.

I felt I’d been labeled a "bad mother," and I felt like a complete failure.

Later that same year, God encouraged me as a mother when ParentLife magazine named me one of eight "Mothers of the Year!" Parker's reaction to this surprising news was, "If they lived with us for a while, they'd probably reconsider."

Those were my thoughts exactly. In fact, I asked my husband how I could be given such a great and undeserving honor. With wisdom, he shared that maybe it was God's way of saying I'm doing better than I think.

His wisdom helped me put things into perspective. God never said I had to be perfect. That was my expectation. He never said that I wouldn't make mistakes or a wrong decision every now and then. Again, that was my hope. I had assumed that the Proverbs 31 lady did everything right and I was suppose to as well. The problem was, with all her great accomplishments, I never considered her "not so good" side.