By Dr. Rita María Hernández | 4ThisGeneration

Can I tell you about a moment I'm not particularly proud of?

One of my children came to me with something I was completely unprepared for. Not a scraped knee. Not a homework question. Something painful. Something that required wisdom I wasn't sure I had.

And do you know what my first instinct was?

I picked up the phone and called my friend.

Now, there is nothing wrong with calling your friend. But I had barely finished explaining the situation before something quiet and firm rose inside me and said: Why did you come to the phone before you came to Me?

I finished the call, sat down, and prayed.

That moment changed something in me; the prayer wasn't dramatic, and the answer did not come immediately, but I realized I had trained myself, without even noticing, to go everywhere else first. My mother. My friend. A parenting book. Everywhere but the One who actually formed my child.

That was the 1990s. The resource we reach for first has changed; today it might be Google, a Facebook group, or a quick scroll through someone else's highlight reel, but the impulse is exactly the same. 

We reach for something. Anything. Before we reach for God.

Maybe you know that feeling.

The Panic Moment Every Mom Knows

There is a specific kind of overwhelm that belongs only to mothers. It's not quite fear and it's not quite failure it's a breathless, middle-of-the-moment feeling of Am I doing this right?

It shows up at 2 am when your child can't sleep and neither can you. It shows up at the school pickup line when another mom mentions something your child said that stops you cold. It shows up in the teenage years, the toddler years, the in-between years, any year, really, because motherhood has a way of consistently asking more of us than we feel

ready and sometimes willing to give.

In those moments, we reach for something. Anything.

We text our sister. We open a parenting book. We scroll Instagram looking for someone who has already figured out what we haven't. And sometimes those things help; community is a gift, and good resources exist for a reason.

But what if we reached for God first?

Not as a last resort. Not after we've exhausted every other option. First.

It's a Skill, Not an Instinct

I want to say something gently but honestly here: going to God first is not something most of us do naturally. It is something we learn. It is a muscle we build through repetition, through choosing it again and again until it becomes the reflex instead of the exception.

James 1:5 is one of those scriptures that sounds almost too simple until you actually need it: "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him."

Read that again slowly.

Gives generously. To all. Without reproach.

He doesn't give wisdom to the moms who have it together. He doesn't hand it out only on Sunday mornings or during your perfectly structured quiet time. He gives it generously to the mom in the school parking lot, to the mom at the end of her rope at bedtime, to the mom who is about to type her child's situation into a search bar, to all, without making us feel foolish for not already knowing.

That is who we are bringing our panic moments to.

The question is whether we'll actually bring them.

Three Things to Do in the Moment When You Feel Lost

These are practical. Real-life, in-the-moment practices I have come back to again and again.

1. Stop before you scroll. When the overwhelm hits and your hand reaches for your phone, pause, just for sixty seconds. Before you open a browser or a group chat, say out loud or in your heart: God, I don't know what to do here. I need your wisdom. That's it. That's the whole prayer. You don't need eloquent language. You need an open hand.

2. Write it down. There is something powerful about getting the chaos out of your head and onto paper. When I don't know what to do, I write out what is actually happening inside me. Sometimes the act of writing it down brings clarity. And sometimes what I've written becomes my prayer. Either way, it slows me down long enough for God to get a word in.

3. Give yourself permission to wait. Not every problem needs to be solved in the next ten minutes. Not every question your child asks requires an immediate answer. One of the most powerful things you can say is: "That's a really important question. Can I pray about it and come back to you?" That pause is not weakness. It is wisdom in action, and your child is watching you model it.

Permission to Not Have the Answer

Here is something I want you to know:

You do not have to have all the answers to be the right mother for your child.

We have somehow absorbed the idea that good mothers are always prepared, always wise, always one step ahead. That uncertainty is a sign of failure. That not knowing is something to hide.

But what if your child watching you take that not-knowing to God, that is one of the most powerful things you can teach them?

What if the moment they see you say "I'm not sure, but I know who to ask" plants a seed that grows into a lifetime of them doing the same thing?

Discipleship doesn't always look like having the right answer. Sometimes it looks like modeling the right response to not having one.

Your uncertainty, handled with faith, is a lesson.

Your panic moment, brought to God first, is a testimony.

Your honest "I don't know, but God does" is planting something in your child that no perfect answer ever could.

Start Here And Give Them A Truth They Can Hold Onto

If you're in a season where you feel like you're constantly scrambling for wisdom, let me offer you something to anchor both you and your child.

I've put together a free resource, Rooted: 7 Scriptures To Help Your Child Know God, because I believe that when we give our children God's Word early, we give them a voice

that speaks long after we are not in the room.

These are seven scriptures I chose carefully. Each one is a truth your child can hold onto when life gets confusing, when they don't know what to do either.

Because the answer to that question starts young.

And it starts with you. And of course, these are scriptures you should have in your core memory as well.

Download your free copy of Rooted: 7 Scriptures Every Child Should Know Before Age 10 at 4thisgeneration.com — and start planting truth in your child's heart today.

Equipping moms. Discipling children. Impacting generations.

© Dr. Rita María Hernández · 4ThisGeneration