The Better Mom: Growing in Grace Between Perfection and the Mess

Mothering is messy. Our joy and hope in raising children doesn't change the reality that being a mom can be frustrating, stressful, and tiring. But just as God is using us to shape our children, God is using our children and motherhood to shape us.

In The Better Mom, author Ruth Schwenk, herself a mother of four children, encourages us with the good news that there is more to being a mom than the extremes of striving for perfection or simply embracing the mess. We don't need to settle for surviving our kids' childhood. We can grow through it.

With refreshing and heartfelt honesty Ruth emboldens moms to:

• Find freedom and walk confidently in purpose
• Create a God-honoring home environment
• Overcome unhealthy and destructive emotions such as anger, anxiety, and more
• Avoid glorifying the mess of mom-ing or idolizing perfection
• Cultivate life-giving friendships

At the heart of The Better Mom is the message that Jesus calls us to live not a weary life, but a worthy life. We don't have to settle for either being apathetic or struggling to be perfect. Both visions of motherhood go too far. Ruth offers a better option. She says, "It's okay to come as we are, but what we're called to do and be is far too important to stay there! The way to becoming a better mom starts not with what we are doing, but with who God is inviting us to become."

Ruth Schwenk is the founder of the popular blog TheBetterMom.com and co-founder, with her husband Patrick, of FortheFamily.org and the podcast Rootlike Faith. She is also the trusted author of several books with HarperCollins Christian Publishing, including The Better Mom Book and Devotional, and co-author with Karen Ehman of Pressing Pause and Settle My Soul. Ruth is a Michigan football super-fan, lover of all things HGTV, and a self-proclaimed foodie. But her greatest joy is her family. She lives with her husband and their four kids in the dreamy college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan.