Whoops.

Have you ever turned up very late to collect your child?
Have you ever got the time completely wrong?
Have you ever thought someone else was collecting, while they thought it was you?

I remember a time when I hadn’t done any of these things. It’s a distant memory, though. There came a day when I missed the Christmas show because I got the time wrong, and I wept in front of the class, a very young Teaching Assistant, and the Deputy Head, who bundled me into her office and patiently reassured me that I hadn’t in fact ruined my child’s life. (Please forgive me if I’ve told you this before.)

Since then we’ve had various other mishaps, none of them thankfully quite that bad. Forgetting this, mistaking that, etc. My kids are under no illusions: Mum sometimes gets it wrong.

On the last day of my daughter’s Summer term this year, I dutifully went to Marks and Spencer to buy the teachers’ gifts she’d asked me to buy, then took my boys swimming, thinking I had ages before 3.30pm. Which was true, but of course they finish at 2pm on the last day of term. They always have done. I’ve been doing the 2pm pickup for thirteen years.

As stressful as that was, and I did feel really bad, it wasn’t a complete disaster. I did manage to fix the situation, just about. But when I do ruin things, with my ineptitude or forgetfulness, I do feel very guilty. I feel like I’ve failed, big time.

This is all very upsetting, because I want to be a really good mum. That’s pretty obvious, and not a bad thing. But deep down I think maybe I can nail this mum business; get the A*. This is embarrassing to admit, but I fear it’s true. And when I just make a bit of a hash of it, it doesn’t fit with my idea of being excellent (cringe). And on some level, this is good for me because it reminds me that I’m a finite human being, and that any abilities I have are from the Lord, and that I still fall way short every. single. day. I’m a sinner, of course I can’t nail being a mum. But I can ask for God’s help and pray for wisdom and really try to love my kids well. This honours the Lord, as much as I point to Him as the source and the reason for it all.

But where does this leave my child, who I’ve left at the school gate or sent to school in the wrong clothes on one of those many (many) special wear such-and-such for some-reason-or-other days? Well, I probably need to apologise profusely. But I can also point her to the One who never lets us down. He always keeps his promises, and he’s never held up; he never forgets; he never fails. He never misses the information, because he knows everything. (I might want to save this chat until a few days later, when she’s recovered!)

As Colin Buchanan says ‘God never says “Oops”, never slips up, never makes any mistakes’.

This also comes up repeatedly in Scripture:

God is not human, that he should lie,
    not a human being, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act?
    Does he promise and not fulfil? Numbers 23.19

I’m really glad about that, because I do need Him to be my perfect Father, and it’s a joy to point my children to Him so they know they do have someone they can really rely on. I will keep trying to be reliable of course, and I won’t lie to my kids. I will be setting reminders for the end of term in future regarding the 2pm pickup.

But if you’re hung up on ways you’ve let your children down, and you’ve already apologised, remember that your kids don’t need you to be perfect. Their God is.