Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe

iBelieve editor Kelly Givens sat down with Sarah Mae, co-author of the book Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe and talked with her about motherhood. Here’s a short clip from that interview as well as Kelly’s take on the book.

This is a book written by mothers, for mothers, and yet I- very much not a mother- found so much to glean from it that Desperate has landed in my list of books to re-read and recommend.

The things about motherhood that scare me are just the things that co-authors Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson talk about- losing your patience, feeling exhausted, not knowing how to handle housework on top of all the other demands of motherhood, feeling underappreciated and under-stimulated, dealing with all the competing voices that tell you how to be a mom… the list goes on. It’s enough to make any mom desperate. It’s enough to make any woman scared to be a mom!

However, the overwhelming point of Desperate is that yes, you will have hard days, but they will pass. You will carry on. It will get better. God has and will continue to equip and strengthen you. He’s created you with just the right blend of gifts, passions and abilities to make you the right mom for your children. This book is paperbound assurance that yes, weary mother, there is hope.

One of my favorite ideas from Desperate is the idea of building a family legacy. I often worry that having kids will take me away from all the work I love, all the hobbies I love, all the awesome things I think God has created me to do and enjoy. I had the (wrong) assumption that once you have kids, the rest of your life is put on hold. You sacrifice everything you enjoy to start blending your own baby food and watching Baby Einstein.

But Sally has a parenting philosophy that totally erased my notion of child rearing. She talks about examining your (and your husband’s) God-given passions and gifts, and making an intentional plan to share the things you love with your children. She explains how she and her husband, Clay, have passed along their love of music, reading, adventure and art to their children:

“It is no wonder that our children are all musical, literary, passionate adventurers, and artists. That is quintessentially who the Clarksons are. We are not good at everything, but we embraced the talents and messages that God put on our hearts, and consequently, our children have grown up generally free from peer pressure. They have developed a love of pursuing their own dreams by faith, because that is what we modeled and taught.”

Wow. That made me excited to parent. How incredible will it be to one day share my love of reading, writing and playing outdoors to my children? Or my husband’s love of sports and music? We’re not giving up what we love in order to parent- we’re sharing those things with our kids. In fact, it seems like one reason God has given passions and talents for certain things is so that we can pass them down to our children.

There’s a lot more I could write about. There’s a chapter about mentoring and seeking relationships that hit home for me, as well as a chapter on letting go of the influences of our culture and focusing on God and his plan—in the clip below, Sarah Mae and I talk about those things, as well as dealing with depression and exhaustion. Be sure to check it out!

I can’t recommend Desperate enough. It’s a great book for new moms, older moms and even non-moms like me.

iBelieve.com: Overwhelmed by Motherhood? There's Hope - Sarah Mae from ibelievedotcom on GodTube.

To read more from Sarah Mae, you visit her website: www.sarahmae.com. You can also read more about Desperate on the book website, here, or you can purchase a copy on Amazon (there's a great Kindle deal going on right now as well).

What’s the hardest thing about being a mom for you? And, what has been your favorite part of motherhood? Let’s talk about it in the comments section!