Surrender in Motherhood: How to Stop Worrying about Your Husband and Children

The story of always being anxious for the well-being of my husband and children and the path to surrender.

It may seem impossible to stop worrying about your husband and children. Each day a new scenario enters your mind about what could go wrong. While it may not be possible to get rid of all worry completely, it is possible to not let it consume you as much as it does.

While it can still help, this article is not directed to those who suffer from clinical anxiety. Nor is it meant to diminish the difficulties that come when battling clinical anxiety.

Job

Job was all I could think about as I looked at and prayed over my sleeping babies. He was all I could think about as my husband left for work in the morning. I couldn’t stop worrying about my husband and children.

I would have random moments when intense fear would grip at my stomach. Fear of losing my children; fear of losing my husband.

Every morning and throughout the day, I would pray for their safety. Terrible scenarios would play out in my head to “prepare” me for the worst. Yet, I didn’t know how I would function if “the worst” were to truly happen.

This went on for a number of years. The fear stole my joy. It stole my peace.

As a young mom, in a similar way to how I do now, I made it a point to have some morning prayer time. I had multiple prayer books that I could turn to if I ever felt stuck in prayer, and I used them often.

One of those prayer books contained a Prayer of Surrender. I don’t remember which version I had at the time, but you can click here to view some popular ones. While I knew that I should surrender my life and everything and everyone in it to God, I kept finding myself unable to pray it.

I was so scared that, if I did, something terrible would happen to my family. In a way, it felt as if saying that prayer would give God some kind of permission to take my family from me. That’s not how God works.

God isn’t out to remove the objects of our love.

He IS love and He wants our love to be ordered properly. He wants to be the primary object of our love. Doing so enhances our lives – it takes nothing away. Even so, we have to be willing to have everything taken away for the sake of His love.

This is a difficult nuance that plays with the heart strings. Yet, I promise – it is so worth it!

Once we learn how to love Him more than we love even our husband and our children, we can then more fully love them. It is when we can surrender them, that we can then be at peace with their welfare.

Fully surrendering to God is to fully trust God.

It’s a perspective shift. It’s a letting go. It’s being willing to receive what He wants us to receive instead of holding out on what we think is best. It’s being willing to stop worrying about your husband and children and, instead, give that worry to God.

As a parent, you know first hand what it is like to have to say no to your child. You know that there are times that you have to keep them from something that they perceive as good, or give them something that they perceive is bad.

It is no different between us and God.

But we have to be willing to surrender our fears to Him. We have to be willing to trust Him.

It is then that something magical happens

In that first act of surrender, peace floods the soul. It then grows with each additional act of surrender, with each additional act of faith.

I can’t tell you that you won’t be free from all fear, or that the gripping anxiety you feel for your children will be gone for good. However, I can promise that God will help you through it.

Every time you feel the fear and anxiety starting to pull you down in a pool of despair, cry out to God. Some days you may still find yourself crying in a heap on the couch. Other days it will be just a passing affliction. Yet, either way, peace will fill your soul.

When we surrender to Him, we let His light enter and cover the darkness that wants to overtake us.

If you struggle with fear and anxiety over the welfare of your family, you can take action right now.

• Pick a prayer of surrender and pray it.
• Or take it a step further and pray the Surrender Novena.
• Make a list of all of your fears and worries, and ask God to take them and fill you with His peace.
• Each time worry starts to grip at your heart, pray: “Jesus, I Trust in You.”
• Read through these Bible verses and pick one or two to write out and put in a prominent place in your home.
• Finally, remember: Complete surrender is not a battle to be won in an instant, but a war to battle through over a lifetime.