I’m a full-time mother with two pre-school children. I’m sure I will look back on this time of my life with a fair amount of nostalgia, but right now while I’m in it, there are days when it feels like relentless, lonely, and unrewarding work. Just being honest.

And then God gives me times which restore my sanity. Last week, after chatting to another mum, I was suddenly able to put my finger on what had been getting me stressed, robbing me of the potential joy in my day-to-day life. Whether or not you’re a full-time mother, see if you can relate to this! My mind had been full of little niggling thoughts using the word ‘should.’ If I wash up, I should be playing with the kids. If, heaven forbid, I get on the floor and play a tickling game with the toddler, I definitely should be washing up. Then bigger ‘shoulds’ crop up – should I not be thinking about my career again now? I should be getting back in the job market and contributing to the household income. Of course, as soon as I considered doing just that, there’d be a big SHOULD about spending more time with the kids.

These nagging thoughts had been pushing me into a spiral of anxiety and stress to the point where it was really affecting my attitude to the children. Just realizing what the thoughts were saying, though, consciously hearing them, made me recognize that they were nonsense.

‘What do you say, Lord?’ I prayed - and realized that in Christ we don’t have to think ‘I should’; we can accept, ‘I am.’ I just am. I might have decisions to make, but I don’t have to justify my existence by what I do. Jesus has already done that. He died to justify me. Now I can simply be.

If I just ‘am’, then whether I’m working or washing up or playing with my toddler, I do it because I choose to and not because guilt compels me. That makes me a nicer mum, for a start. I think this is the place of rest Jesus leads us to – not the rest of staying in bed all day, but of acting from a place of rest and acceptance in him.

Maybe I’m the only nutty, stressed out woman around here, but if you ever do get stressed, search your mind for ‘shoulds’. I doubt they have anything useful to say.