Ask a Mentor Mom
On embracing our limits, finding worth in our work, and homemade birthday cakes
Ask a Mentor Mom: In this summer series, I’ll be sharing written interviews from older, seasoned moms. My hope is that these would encourage and equip us with the perspective of those who have gone before us. Happy reading! May these bless you as much as they’ve blessed me!
Ask a Mentor Mom, with Chrissy Trapp
Let’s start with telling us a little bit about yourself!
My name is Chrissy Trapp! I grew up in Austin, Texas, and currently live in Houston with my family. I am wife to John, who serves as Senior Pastor at Christ the King Presbyterian Church. We met 20 years ago at Vanderbilt University where we both studied Human and Organizational Development. We married a year after college and spent our early married days doing ministry through Christ the King as well as Reformed University Fellowship. I now spend most of my time mothering our five children ages 14, 12, 11, 8, and 6. I also have my Masters in Christian Counseling and enjoy doing premarital counseling for engaged couples alongside John. In my spare time, I love to read, watch baseball, play games with my family, and write. I write a blog called Showing Up Undone with stories and encouragements about where the gospel meets motherhood. You can find me at https://substack.com/@showingupundone.
If you could take your young mom-self to coffee today, what would you tell her?
I imagine young mom Chrissy with lots of littles in her arms trying to hold it all without dropping the ball. I would tell her that if you feel like you’ve stretched yourself and your life beyond your own capacity to manage it, do not despair. Your limits can be seen as a good thing. It is a gift to be a human who relies on the Lord, and it is an opportunity to trust him and ask for help as you realize your need.
Your most effective parenting will come not out of your own strength or success, but out of a deep dependence on the Lord. (I would also tell her its ok if you don’t make the homemade cake every single year for every single birthday!)
What are 1-2 lessons God taught you in the years of raising littles?
One lesson I have gleaned through the years is that God gives our mothering it’s worth. When one of my daughters was a toddler, she poured a whole tub of sprinkles over the banister. (Just another day in the life…) While I begrudgingly cleaned up the rainbow of sugar specks from all of the nooks and crannies on the floor below, I was encouraged by a song I had just listened to by Porter’s Gate called Establish the Work of Our Hands. It is inspired by Psalm 90:17 which says, “Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands.”
There are so many moments in the early years of motherhood that feel mundane and exhausting like the scattered sprinkles situation, and we can get discouraged thinking that what we are doing lacks meaning. But it is not up to us to create that significance in who we are or what we do.
We have a God who gives our work it’s worth because he has given us worth in him.
He cares about our labor all because he deeply loves his laborers. As mothers, we can grow to pray and rely more on his spirit to strengthen us and establish the work of our hands. Through this, we are freed from our own judgments of how well we are handling the moment and worrying if what we are doing matters enough.
Is there a specific truth or piece of scripture that you clung to in that season?
I used to have my quiet times in the afternoon during “rest time”. I recall many days gazing out the window at our beautiful oak trees in our old house and reciting Psalm 1. Every day I had to be reminded of the truth of God’s Word and what that meant for me. Although most afternoons I felt exhausted and distracted, I longed to delight in his law and to be like a tree bearing fruit, drawing constantly from the well of God’s grace and love. The first half of Psalm 1 would always wash over the sweetest reminder for me to stay the course; to not be swept up in earthly fleeting happiness, but to be planted in his Word and ready for his joy. The blessings of Psalm 1 belong to us through Christ, and his spirit can help us live that out in our day-to-day mothering.
What’s one piece of advice or encouragement you’d offer a mom in the season of raising young children?
Remember that you are first and foremost a child of God. This will help you to better embrace your own children as he grows you through his grace in your role as a parent. And allow him to shape you more into who God made you to be, instead of wishing you could be more like someone else. It may be tempting to compare yourself to other moms and wish something about yourself or your circumstance could be different, but God has made you exactly who you are and he is at work both in and through you. God longs to grow you not to be more like your friend or even your spouse, but to be more like his son, Jesus. Continue to embrace Jesus through that grace and growth he faithfully provides, one season at a time.
Find more of Chrissy and her writing at: https://substack.com/@showingupundone
