Father’s Day can be an emotional day for single moms. It may be a day you are reminded you are the only parent and that the biological father isn’t in the picture. Father’s Day may even cause a few moments of pain when you see your married friends celebrating their husbands on Father’s Day and maybe you secretly wish that you didn’t have to do it alone. Although these feelings are valid, I propose you don’t need to stay in this place when you shift your thinking to put Christ as the head of your household. Instead of celebrating yourself on this day (check out the post here that I wrote last year on single moms celebrating Father’s Day), I encourage you to celebrate Christ and take a hard look at whether or not you are relying on yourself, hoping to find a man, or putting your hope and trust in Christ as the head of your household.
The thought of putting Christ first may seem counterintuitive at first because we are taught the benefits of self-reliance or we falsely believe that we can make someone else do something. However, trying to make someone else do something is pointless because it doesn’t work and self-reliance is the cornerstone of pride, which is a sin. Besides, we will never have enough strength in our human bodies to equal Christ, so if we put hope in ourselves we will always be disappointed. We need a paradigm shift. We need Christ. When I think about the goodness of Christ and the benefits of following Him, I am reminded of the scripture in Galatians 5:22-23 (NLT), “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”
Today, I want to use Galatians 5:22-23 to explore what can happen when you put Christ as the head of your household.
God Is The Father To The Fatherless (Kindness)
In Psalm 68:5 (NIV), the Bible says, “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.” God is expressing kindness by being the ultimate father to our children and our ultimate provider and protector. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if your children’s earthly father isn’t around. God is the ultimate Father and He is a better father than you could ever imagine.
Christ Is Love
We don’t know just how God moves when He is showing us mercy and love. Isaiah 55:9 says, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” What we may view as bad may actually be good. For example, single moms, if your child(ren)’s father is not in the picture, be grateful that God allowed him to move out of the way. We already talked about how God is the ultimate Father. Therefore, start looking at single motherhood as an act of mercy from God. When you start to make that shift and find peace and contentment in your journey as a single mom, everything will change and those prior areas of hurt will go away and be replaced with joy.
Christ Won’t Let You Down (Faithfulness)
Sometimes it is hard to shift our reliance on our own abilities and put our reliance in Christ. We are used to people letting us down and not following through. When we think about putting our faith in someone outside of ourselves, we are naturally skeptical because we don’t want to be let down. However, when you put your full faith and trust in Jesus, He will always come through. He will make a way out of no way and He will surround you with the energy, resources, and people that will help you through this journey. When you put Him first, things just happen.
Focusing On Christ Allows You To See Just How Much You Are Blessed (Goodness)
I believe that if you take a step back, you will see so much of God’s work in your life already. Your child may not have a present biological father, but they may have amazing male role models who love and care for your child and who show them every day that they matter. For example, I have an amazing father who is also a wonderful grandfather. I am grateful for him and that he is a positive male presence in my life and my children’s lives. What matters is having your children surrounded by people who love and who care for them, and that starts with making sure that you are approaching your single motherhood journey with the right mindset.
Focusing On Christ Brings Joy
I think gratitude helps bring forth a spirit of joy. When I think about the goodness of Christ, I am almost immediately overcome with the joy that follows gratitude. The gratitude helps me to focus on the things that are going well and not the things that aren’t. It helps me to focus on the things that I have instead of the things that I don’t have. It helps me to focus on the things that money can’t buy such as joy, peace, love, and much more. Being grateful, I believe, is directly related to the amount of joy that you can experience in life because with gratitude you find contentment. I believe that contentment helps to cause joy.
Christ Is Peace
One of the biggest benefits that I have found in the walk with Christ is the peace that comes with it. John 16:33 (NLT) tells us that, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Note, he said, “will” not “if”, but during those times, if you know who you serve then you can rest in peace and have the assurance that God will provide. It may not look the way that we think it should, but it will be exactly what we need at that time. In fact, we can go through the day in peace and not worry because, Matthew 6:34 tells us, “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
Christ Gives You Self-Control
I’ve always despised the saying, “Do as I say and not as I do.” It always seemed insanely unfair and honestly confusing. If you are telling me that this isn’t right then why are you doing it? It sends mixed messages and is hypocritical. I never wanted to be that mom. For example, if I want my children to be on time, then I need to be on time (and it doesn’t matter what excuse I can come up with for being late. It’s irrelevant). If I want my children to learn to take responsibility for their actions and to admit when they are wrong, then I need to know how to apologize, take responsibility, and not make excuses. If I want my children to learn to eat good, healthy, and wholesome food then I need to do it. Get the point? This is extremely hard, and it’s even harder to examine your actions and behaviors to critically analyze where you may be falling short and admit your own shortcomings. By nature, we are weak, and many of the things that I just mentioned require self-discipline, self-control, and self-awareness. However, the good news is that through Christ you can do anything. The Bible tells us in 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”
Christ Will Give You Gentleness
When you put Christ as the head of your household, you also experience gentleness. The NLT Dictionary/Concordance defines gentleness as, “Mildness of manners or disposition.” With gentleness, you don’t respond with anger. Instead, you respond with patience, grace, and love. That’s an amazing benefit of following Christ. I think that this is a powerful trait to have in parenting because our kids learn more from what we do than what we say.
- Imagine what type of example you will give to your children if you treat the server with grace even though they messed up your food order?
- What would your children learn if they didn’t see you screaming at the customer service representative for overcharging you?
- What would your children learn and apply in their own friendships if they didn’t see you acting one way around your friends and then saying something else behind their back?
- What if when they do something wrong you decide not to yell and scream at them. Instead, you stay calm, talk to them the way you would want to be addressed, and then you show them the right way to do it. Imagine how receptive they would be at your attempts at correcting their behavior and how loved they would feel.
Proverbs 3:12 tells us, “because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” I emphasized the words love and delights because the Lord loves and delights in us, which is why He corrects us. Next time you think about disciplining your child, think about how much you love them and delight in them and show them love in that correction.
Christ Will Give You Patience
When you have gentleness, patience starts to follow. The NLT Dictionary/Concordance defines “patience” as: “the power or capacity to endure without complaint something difficult or disagreeable” (emphasis mine).
Being patient during tough times is hard because it is uncomfortable. However, there are opportunities to start developing your patience muscle in the small things. Just think about these scenarios.
- Have you ever noticed that when the microwave is on, we may look at the time as if our constant vigilance will make our food cook faster? No matter how fast technology has gotten to reduce our time waiting, it never seems like it is fast enough.
- Have you noticed that you find yourself watching the time during a music download impatiently waiting for the new music to be available?
- Have you ever complained during a meal because your server took too long to bring your food? That recently happened to me. I was so annoyed that I couldn’t even enjoy the food. My annoyance over the wait time lead to me finding fault with the food, and as a result, my response and attitude ruined the dinner for me.
Patience is so important because our relationships with others and even our children can be impacted because of lack of patience. When we snap at people, lose our temper, and say things that we don’t mean because of a lack of patience or lack of gentleness we hurt those who we love. Impatience can even cause us to miss our blessings. One of my favorite examples of lack of patience and lack of gratitude was the Children of Israel. God delivered them from slavery in Egypt, but they lacked “the power or capacity to endure without complaint something difficult or disagreeable” which is the definition of patience according to the NLT Dictionary/Concordance. Instead of praising God for deliverance from bondage and providing for them during the trip through the wilderness, they complained. As punishment, God denied them entrance into the Promised Land. Lack of patience has real consequences to your future and your relationships.
Conclusion
There are so many benefits to putting Christ as the head of your household, so on this Father’s Day, I encourage you to spend time honoring Christ and assessing if He is the head of your household. Also, spend time celebrating the father figures and positive male role models in your life and in your children’s life. It truly takes a village to raise a child, so celebrate and find opportunities to be grateful for the blessings that God has given you. You will find so much more peace and happiness when you do.
Leave a comment in the Phenomenal Moms Facebook Group to let me know how this helps you!
If you want more tips and resources, download your FREE Hotsheet that will show you the best online savings sites and apps! Click here to download!
Aisha Taylor is a single mom of twins, personal financial coach, work from home entrepreneur, and #1 Amazon Best Selling Author of the book “5+5 FNPhenomenal Ways to Save $100 This Week Without Killing Your Lifestyle.” Aisha has been featured in ESSENCE, Jet Magazine, and Black Enterprise. She is also the Founder of FNPhenomenal (Frugal –n- Phenomenal), a movement designed to help single moms create a vision for their lives, craft a financial strategy to support that vision, and show them that phenomenal living is possible. It’s time for you to be Financially Phenomenal!
Instagram/Twitter/Facebook/Pinterest: @FNPhenomenal
hello@fnphenomenal.com
