Take Heart

Understanding the Difference Between Guilt & Conviction

• Amy J Brown, Carrie Holt and Sara Clime • Season 1 • Episode 39

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Discerning the difference between accusation and conviction requires us to rely on the Holy Spirit. God wants us to bring our burden of guilt to Him. In this episode, Carrie encourages us to remember that as believers, we have been given the power of the Holy Spirit to be the mother perfectly equipped for your children.

May 11, 2021

Timestamps & Key Topics:

  • 0:23-    Intro
  • 1:02-    Struggles with Guilt
  • 3:32-    Accusation or Conviction
  • 5:57-    Encouragement
  • 10:16-  God’s Divine Power
  • 12:08-  Romans 8
  • 13:58-  Outro

Episode Links & Resources:

  • Scripture mentioned: II Peter 1:3, Romans 8:31-39

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(0:23)   Welcome to Take Heart where our goal is to give you hope, offer insight and encouragement so you can flourish in your journey as a special needs mom. Each week Sara, Amy Carrie will explore a theme, share share an inspiring story, practical tips and encouragement for you to use on your journey. Thank you for being here today.

(1:02) Hello there. This month in May, we are talking about guilt, the guilt that we feel as special needs moms. Just a few days ago, it was Mother's Day. So Happy Mother's Day to all of our moms who are listening. So this month of Mother's Day is the day when moms are celebrated and revered. Maybe you've had a mother's day like Frankie Heck on the sitcom, The Middle, where her family left her for the day to enjoy her mother's day all alone. Do you know what she did? She spent the day fixing a clogged toilet and cleaning out a junk drawer. I hope you didn't get to spend your mother's day that way. Mother's Day and the topic of guilt might not seem like they go together. It probably doesn't feel very positive to discuss guilt in this month. Let's be honest, we all struggle with guilt as moms. It's easy to slip into that feeling that we aren't doing enough that we're messing up our children. Let me reassure you, you are not. As mothers of children who have various special needs, here are a few areas that we might struggle with guilt. Let's see if you can identify with any of them. Maybe it's with your special needs child, you feel like you've caused this diagnosis. Maybe your child's diagnosis has a genetic component to it, and so you struggle with guilt over this. Maybe another area is just that you're not doing enough. You're not doing enough therapy, behavioral plans, or schooling. You feel guilty that whatever is going on isn't helping your child enough. Maybe you feel guilt over grieving, when your child is still alive. That grief is a very real part of our special needs journey. Maybe you feel guilty when you get angry over having to take care of your child. I know this is a big one that I have struggled with. I feel guilty because I get tired, and I don't really want to care for him sometimes. Then there's guilt in the area of our other children. We feel guilty for missing their activities or because they have to take the backseat when our child with needs, needs more time and attention. This has been a big one for me, too. We have had to call an ambulance, and our plans have been ruined because of our son's medical conditions. We even had to call an ambulance when we were at Disney one time. Boy, that was a doozy. 

(3:32) These many areas that we often feel guilty about, and you can, I'm sure, name many more. I want to make something very clear. There's a difference between guilt and conviction. According to the dictionary app guilt, by definition is that feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, whether it's real or imagined. Now I know that we all have guilt over things that we really have done. We need to definitely take that to the Lord and ask for forgiveness. Most of the time, our guilt is remorse for something that's imagined. This is where we really have to be discerning. We have to discern whether our guilt is true over something we've really done, or whether it's our imagination. I think that goes back to the difference between an accusation and conviction. The devil accuses. The Holy Spirit convicts. Let's talk about the difference here. The devil's accusations are harsh, slanderous, full of lies. A lot of times the focus is on what you could have done better, or it's working, working, working to do more to be more. The accusations might have a hint of truth in them, but it's twisted in a way that makes you feel shame, contempt and condemnation. On the other hand, conviction is the voice of the Holy Spirit, which is kind, inviting us to repentance. It might not be completely comfortable, because we're still convicted over something we are doing wrong. Scripture tells us in Romans that God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance. When you think about the story of the prodigal son, the father was anxiously looking for his son to return home, he wanted him to come to him. As we know, with God's goodness and his forgiveness, we can pursue that relationship and have forgiveness with him. Ask yourself, is the voice that you're hearing, is it that accusation where you feel guilty over things that are probably imagined, or is it conviction? Only really, you can know the difference between the tww. Here's some things that I would love to encourage you with. First of all, is to be discerning about what that voice is saying to you. If it's full of lies or twists of the truth, then it's probably an accusation. If it's gentle and loving, and you kind of know that it doesn't measure up against scripture then it's probably conviction and God's gently leading you towards something that maybe you do need to change. 

(6:23) I want to focus today on those accusations, and the guilt that is most likely imagined. We take a lot on ourselves as special needs moms. We feel guilty about a lot of things that we should not feel guilty about. First of all, I want to encourage you don't take on the responsibility that is only God's to bear. Maybe you struggle with guilt, because your child's condition has a genetic component, and you feel the accusation that you caused this. I just want to encourage you, first of all, that is a lie from the pit of hell, and you are not responsible. I don't pretend to have all the answers because I do not know the mind of God.  I do know that our earth has been affected by sin. I also know that Psalm tells us that your child was created in your womb, that your child is fearfully and wonderfully made, and they were knit together. They have a purpose and a plan. Please do not take on that responsibility. Give it over to the Lord, because the father wants to hold you and doesn't want you to bear that burden. 

Secondly, maybe you feel guilty, because you're not doing enough. I just want you to know that you can't do it all, neither can I. It is hard to juggle all of our demands. We cannot and will not be perfect. God will fill in the cracks. Think about when Jesus fed the 5000. He had one small lunch to feed that huge crowd. All that boy did was give that lunch to Jesus. He didn't ask the boy to feed the entire crowd. He just asked him to be faithful. That's what God is asking of us. He's not asking you to be perfect. He's just asking you to be faithful. Then God fed an entire crowd of people. The same thing when you turn the water into wine. He didn't ask them to provide the wine. He asked them to fill the jars to the top with water, and then he performed the miracles. He's going to do the same in your life. He's just asking you to bring your faithfulness, to bring what you have to him and allow him to do the rest. Another encouragement that I want to tell you is that be willing to allow the Lord to have control. I know this is hard because I am a control freak. After we had the diagnosis with Toby, and I grieved through all of that. I immediately switched into “Type A” planning mode because I wanted to control all of it. We planned the date of his birth, we toured the NICU. We met all the doctors that we needed to know. I was trying to plan out where our older two boys were going to be, who were 18 months old, and 3 at the time. We planned the day of his surgeries, the day of my C section. We even planned to make sure that his birth was going to happen before January 1, so we could get a tax deduction. Oh, yes, we did. Then after he was born two and a half weeks later, when he went into respiratory failure, everything was out of my control. I had to learn that this was okay. This was in God's hands. I couldn't feel guilty about maybe the things that I missed during those two weeks. I look back at pictures now, and I can see the way my son tilted his head that he was probably having trouble breathing, or the way he would sleep that he was struggling with things that I missed. You know what, that's okay because God was faithful, and he is in control. I can't do it all, and you can't do it all either.

(10:16) I also want to encourage you that Peter tells us in II Peter 1:31:3, “H that, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.” ” I'm not sure about you, but that verse isa huge comfort to me because it means that we have access to God's divine power. He has granted to us the power that we need to live this life of godliness through the knowledge of Him. He has called us to his own glory and excellence. You have everything you need to be the mom, to your child with special needs, and to be the mom to your other children if you have them, to be the wife to your husband if you are married, to be the daughter, to be the aunt. Y.You have the power you need. You have access to the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. 

(11:18) So I would love to close with this encouragement. So just remember that there's a difference between accusations and conviction. Accusation is usually what brings on our guilt because it's an imagined guilt. We’re not really guilty of anything. It's that we're believing the lies that Satan has told us that we're not doing enough. We aren't enough. We need to replace those lies with truth. Those truths are, that God is near you. He is with you. He wants to bear your burdens. You are enough. You have been completely equipped with the power of the Holy Spirit. He will work through you and in you. All he's asking you to do is to bring your water.

(12:08) I want to close with this encouragement from Romans 8. “What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” And I want to say that even our own selves sometimes are against us, to not be against yourself, because God is for you. “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine, or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God. That is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”

(13:58) Thank you for joining us this week on Take Heart. If you love our podcast, could you do us a favor and leave a review on whatever platform that you're using to listen? You can follow us on Instagram or Facebook @takeheartspecialmoms. If you have any questions or comments, or would like to share your story with us, please follow the links in our show notes. We love hearing from our listeners. Listen in next Tuesday as Sara shares her thoughts on guilt.