The Christian Mom’s Mindset for a Peaceful, Joyful Holiday with Her Adult Kids
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Has holiday planning with your adult children increased your stress levels and you’re barely into November?
Maybe you can relate to Julia’s story:
Julia settled into her comfy chair with her morning coffee. Worry bubbled forth as she imagined what the holidays will look like this year. Her oldest, John, won’t be home as he’s heading to his wife's parent’s home. “I’ll never get used to sharing my child with another family,” she thinks, “I just don’t like it.”
Her middle daughter, Elizabeth, won’t commit to plans. “Why can’t she just communicate with me? It’s so frustrating,” she sighs. “She seems annoyed with us all. We’re hardly even a family anymore. Why does it all have to be so stressful,” she wonders.
Connor, her youngest, will be home from college. “He never seems to want to be with us,” she thinks. “He’s always running around with his friends. I feel lonely and forgotten.”
“Lord, I need you. I’m overwhelmed and I don’t want our holidays to be stressful. I give everyone and everything to you. Please help me,” she whispered, as peace washed over her soul.
Mom Stress
Preparing for the holidays has never been easy for moms. Most of us have carried the mental weight of holiday planning for decades and the stress continues as our children reach adulthood.
We all face many of these common stressors:
Sharing our married children with their in-laws.
Step-families and the juggling that requires.
Tension in our adult children’s relationship with each other.
Our children have abandoned the religious views of their upbringing.
No one in our families pitches in for meal prep and cleaning.
Our adult children are resistant to making family plans.
Talk about stress. No wonder we dread this time of year. It feels like too much, and we’ll just be disappointed again.
What if there was a way to shift our thinking? Could we adopt a healthier view, so we don’t end up crushed and disappointed? How could our holidays look if we entered them from a posture of surrender?
Let’s open our palms and release it all to Jesus. Could we take all the fussing, expectations, dreams, and fears and lay it all before our benevolent King? What could that feel like?
A Prayer of Surrender
Several years ago I discovered John Eldredge's One Minute Pause app. In it, I found the most powerful prayer of surrender. “Jesus, I give everyone and everything to you.”
Try it. Take a deep breath, then pray. “Jesus, I give everyone and everything to you.” Do you feel the tension release from your shoulders? Do you feel grace rush in?
In praying this, we are freed from the tyranny of holiday stress. Because ultimately, in surrendering to Jesus, we are releasing the desire to have things our way. When we give it all to Jesus, we realize He is great enough to handle it. All we need to do is stay in step with Him as He leads us. What a gift surrender is.
Four Powerful Mindsets:
In addition to the prayer of surrender, try these four helpful mindsets so you can have a more peaceful, joyful holiday season with your adult children.
1. You’re not responsible for making everyone happy.
It’s nearly impossible to please everyone, yet you still try to and it leaves you feeling depleted. This is a difficult mindset to grab on to if you’ve spent years trying to appease everyone in the family. Instead, you continually surrender each part and work for the good of the whole. Ask, what can I do to help my family feel loved and welcomed while they’re home for the holidays?
2. Your happiness is not dependent on your child’s actions.
When you continually expect certain behavior out of your adult children, you’ll feel sad when they stray from how you raised them. You’ll feel like a failure if they have different political or religious views.
Instead, continue to return to the knowledge that only God satisfies. He is the source of your joy. Your children’s choices may disappoint you, but thankfully you have learned to find happiness in God not other human’s behaviors. Your child’s actions are a reflection of their choices. You are not responsible for that. As adult’s, they are.
3. Worry less, pray more.
What could it look like this holiday season if you were intentional about praying for your family gatherings? Replace your ruminating with powerful prayers.
Spend some time with the Lord, ask these questions, then pray through them for the next 30 days.
What does each adult child need most?
What does the family as a whole need most?
Where would you like God to move in your family?
What do you need to surrender?
4. Hold plans loosely:
The surest way for you to have a meltdown is to be disappointed because things don’t look the same as they always did. Your holidays cannot and will not look the same as when your children were all home.
Families are too large and complex. There are too many moving parts. Be open to celebrating in unique, different ways. Hold unto a few traditions, but let the rest go. The best thing you can do is lay out the plans and accept that not everyone will always be able to be there. The more flexible you are, the more peace you will have.
It’s normal to feel stressed about the holidays, but we’ll experience more peace and joy when we understand we don’t have to make everyone happy, know our children aren’t responsible for our happiness, pray more than we worry, and remain flexible.
May the prayer, “Jesus, I give everyone and everything to you,” be repeated in our hearts in the weeks to come.
Let’s pray.
Dear Papa, Thank you that you know my heart this holiday season. Help me be surrendered to you in every way. Help me release my desire to control or please my family. Help me change the way I think about the holidays as I adopt these mindsets. Help me create a warm, loving environment when we gather. Amen.
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