Grace for the Mother I Never Thought I’d Be

🌸 There was a time in my life when I truly did not want children. Motherhood was never something I dreamed about or planned for the way other women sometimes do. Yet here I stand, almost 36 years old, with three beautiful girls and nearly fourteen and a half years of motherhood behind me.

And all I can say is: Lord, thank You.

Thank You for keeping me.

Thank You for growing me.

🌼 Thank You for never removing Your hand from my life, even during the seasons when I was far from You, lost in my own decisions, emotions, and sin. There were moments I deserved consequences that could have completely taken me out. Yet Your mercy stood in the gap for me again and again.

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I am not the same woman I was yesterday, and that alone is evidence of God’s grace.

🌺 Motherhood has stretched me in ways I never imagined. It exposed wounds, pride, selfishness, fear, and exhaustion. It revealed areas in me that needed healing. There were seasons where I tried to carry everything on my own shoulders, trying to prove something, trying to survive, trying to “have it all together.”

But recently, the Lord has been showing me something deeper: I need rest.

Not just physical rest.

Spiritual rest.

Mental rest.

Emotional rest.

The kind of rest that only comes from surrendering fully to Him.

🌼 So much of what I once called ambition was actually fear disguised as productivity.

Fear of failure.

Fear of not having enough.

Fear of falling behind.

Fear of disappointing people.

I stayed in constant motion because slowing down felt unsafe. But God, in His love, began revealing that I was not alone in operating this way. So many women are exhausted because we have mistaken striving for strength.

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But strength is not found in constantly running.

Strength is found in trusting God enough to rest.

I am learning that I do not have to have every answer figured out. I do not have to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders.

The mistakes I made along the way were not wasted years; they became part of my testimony.

Every hardship, every wrong turn, every tear, every lesson now has the power to help someone else feel less alone.

And even if my story only reaches one person, all the glory still belongs to God.

That is the beauty of surrender.

God can take the very things we are ashamed of and transform them into evidence of His mercy.

As Mother’s Day quickly approaches, I find myself reflecting not on perfection, but on grace.

The grace that carried me through sleepless nights, hard lessons, single moments, emotional battles, financial struggles, parenting fears, and seasons where I questioned myself deeply.

And through it all, God remained faithful.

So today my prayer is simple:

“Lord, continue to increase as I decrease.”

Let my life point back to You.

Let my motherhood point back to You.

Let my testimony point back to You.

Because at the end of the day, none of this was possible without Your grace.

In Jesus name, amen. 🙏🏽

— DeVonn Barlow

Founder of The Surrendered Walk