4 Truths for Moms Who Feel Weak
In 2012, my husband and I purchased a taupe rocking chair with square arms and white piping. When we assembled it in the nursery near the end of my first pregnancy, I imagined holding our future children—tired infants I’d sing to sleep in the dark. What I never imagined was rocking a son with disabilities, who’d spend more time in that chair with me than our other four children combined.
When he was an infant, I nursed him and cried because I couldn’t understand why he struggled with feeding and growing. When he was a toddler (who wasn’t talking or toddling), I rocked him to sleep after long days in doctors’ offices, through tough questions and life-altering diagnoses. When he was a kindergartner, I still laid him across my chest, legs wrapped around my side, jammy feet hanging out over the chair arms—I comforted him through sick nights when he didn’t have the words to tell me what was wrong. Now he’s eight, and I haven’t stopped rocking him yet.
In that chair, I prayed. I asked God some gut-wrenching questions. I sat in silence. But most of all, I sang. I’d gaze at the dim lights in the hallway or close my eyes, and then I’d rotate through every hymn I could sing from memory. Eventually, I’d find the one I always finished with, the one I repeated until my son was fast asleep: “Jesus Loves Me.” I’d sing it as a fact. As a cure. As a whisper in the dark. As my only hope. A streaming promise on loop.
Though most of us moms can sing the first verse of this familiar song, it’s time we learned the rest by heart, because from beginning to end, it shares Jesus’s steadfast love and strength for our bleakest and weakest moments.
1. Jesus Loves
Jesus loves me—this I know,
For the Bible tells me so:
Little ones to him belong—
They are weak, but he is strong.
The first stanza of “Jesus Loves Me” is personal. It doesn’t just reflect on Jesus’s love for mankind or his church in general but on Jesus’s love for “me” specifically. And if we struggle to confidently speak a proclamation of Jesus’s love out loud, the second line rushes in like a confident child’s retort: “For the Bible tells me so!” In case there was any doubt of Jesus’s love, the authority of Scripture shores it up.[1]
On the firm foundation of Jesus’s love, proven by God’s Word, an identification statement is made. Who belongs to Jesus? Little ones. “Little ones” can be taken literally to mean a child, but figuratively, the term represents the children of God. As we see ourselves as little ones, we’re included as those who belong. And we find that strength doesn’t belong to us but to Jesus Christ, the Lord.
2. Jesus Saves
Jesus loves me—he who died
Heaven’s gate to open wide;
He will wash away my sin,
Let his little child come in.
While it’s comforting to know that Jesus loves us, thinking and singing about warm fuzzy feelings isn’t enough. Those who are little and weak need more than words—they need protection from death. Any mom who has taken her young child to the ocean or the zoo or who has simply stood beside the road or a cliff knows that. The second stanza addresses the way Christ loves us, by taking action to meet our deepest need and provide ultimate protection—washing away our sin so that we can be with God in heaven forever.[2]
We aren’t just loved, we are welcomed in—into the family of God, into union with Christ, into friendship with God, into a life filled by the Spirit, and ultimately, into heaven to live with God eternally.
3. Jesus Sees
Jesus loves me—loves me still,
Though I’m very weak and ill;
From his shining throne on high
Comes to watch me where I lie.
If the previous stanza had us dwelling on our certain future hope, this one rips us back to our present reality. Though a glorious eternity awaits, today we still struggle. We still need Jesus’s love in the midst of our grief, pain, and weary striving as moms. The third stanza gives us a picture of a captive refusing to give up hope, though their captor tells them no one is coming to the rescue. Yes . . . yes, he is. Jesus loves me, loves me still!
Whether through physical weakness and illness or in the many other ways we experience weakness on this side of heaven, this stanza reminds us that Jesus already left his throne on high to take on flesh and dwell among us, that he’s alive, and that he’s coming back again. Jesus has never been too lofty to see our pain and come to our side—he’s gentle and lowly of heart, moved to compassion, present, and near to those who are weak.[3]
4. Jesus Stays
Jesus loves me—he will stay
Close beside me all the way.
Then his little child will take
Up to heaven for his dear sake.
This last stanza comforts the anxious, fearful child in all of us. Jesus will not abandon us when things get hard—we don’t need to panic (though we can certainly cling). He will stay beside us all the way to the grave. And while that may seem like a bleak way to end a song, isn’t it deeply comforting? To know that the scariest place we can imagine going will not be a place without Jesus’s loving presence? Even if and when we breathe our last breath—whether in childhood or old age—he will never leave or forsake us. He will stay until we exhale and be our sight on the other side.[4]
He Is Strong
A theme weaves like a thread through this hymn: that we are weak, but Jesus is strong. While he experienced many of the “weaknesses” that we do—like when we’re tired or hungry or grieving—he himself is not weak. In the beginning he was with God and he was God—all things were made by him.[5] He is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3). He willingly left his throne to take on flesh—and after he made atonement for sin, he went back to his seat at the right hand of the Majesty on High.[6]
In every way, as Creator, Prophet, Priest, King, Shepherd, Bridegroom, Messiah, and Lamb, he exudes strength, goodness, and perfection. Jesus, just like every member of the Trinity, is fully God—all-knowing, all-present, and all-powerful. He has ownership of, access to, and ability to use every resource. He is never deficient; he’s all-sufficient. And he loves us.
The strength, hope, and help we’re looking for in motherhood are found in God, whose promises will cradle our hearts with comfort and rest. Yes, we are weak moms, but we are not alone, lost, unseen, unprotected, or forgotten. At every stage and through every season, we are weak, but he is strong.
[1] Psalm 19:7; John 3:16, 15:9, 13; 2 Timothy 3:16; 1 John 3:16, 4:19
[2] John 14:3-6; Romans 5:8; Colossians 1:21-22; 1 Timothy 2:5; 1 Peter 2:24
[3] Psalm 16:11, 139:7; Matthew 11:28-30; Mark 2:17
[4] John 10:28, 11:25-26; Romans 6:23; Philippians 3:20-21; Revelation 21:3
[5] John 1:1, 3
[6] Philippians 2:6-8; Hebrews 1:3
This is adapted from He Is Strong by Emily Jensen. Used with permission from Harvest House Publishers.
