Accused

“What have you been allowing this girl to wear on her feet to cause this type of damage?” demanded the pediatrician.

My daughter was born with structural feet problems that had steadily worsened over the years. Those crooked feet had been cushioned, supported, and lovingly pampered since the day I’d sent out announcements declaring the birth of our perfect baby girl with fuzzy hair and floppy feet. I sighed and defended myself.

Moms aren’t perfect, but we sure seem to get a bad rap. For me, it started in the hospital after my first son’s arrival. “Mrs. Moore, did you eat something gassy? Your baby is screaming in the nursery. You know,” lectured the nurse, suspiciously eyeing the remains on my dinner tray, “whatever you eat the baby takes in, too.” Wet diapers, it turns out, also cause babies to cry.

I’m not saying I don’t make mistakes. My family and friends certainly know otherwise. But even those closest to me don’t make accusations, even when I’m way off the mark. There are other ways to nudge me in the right direction, and if there is guilt to be reckoned with, they know I’ll sniff it out on my own. Moms do that.

But, thankfully, I never have to wallow in my guilt. The Bible says that in Christ I’ve been made complete—that when I was dead in my transgressions, He made me alive together with Him, having forgiven all of my transgressions. That leaves me utterly free to move forward, learning from my mistakes, and focusing on doing the right thing.

In that vein, I sought a nutritionist’s counsel when my lean and fit daughter began expressing undue concerns about her weight. “It appears,” the woman told me with a grimace, “that you just want to control things.”