It was August 15th, the Solemnity of the Assumption, and I was rushing my homeschooled children to Mass. We were late. My ten-year-old son ran to the car with what he thought were two shoes in his arms. It wasn’t until we pulled up to the church that we realized the truth: he had only brought one.

​He walked into Mass wearing one shoe and one sock.

​Because we were late, there were no pews left. We had to stand in the back, totally exposed. Many other families were standing with us—were they noticing the shoe situation? I held a baby in my arms, flanked by my four- and seven-year-old daughters whose unbrushed hair made it obvious they had just rolled out of bed. There was nowhere to hide. My motherhood was on display for all to see; a disheveled clutch of kids and one bare foot. To make matters worse, this wasn’t a parish where I could hide in the crowds. I worked there. Everyone knew me. The long aisle march up for communion was especially mortifying as I imagined absolutely every eye tracking the missing shoe!

​I can laugh at it now, but looking back, I realize that this humiliation was revealing a deeper issue: the self-imposed armor of perfectionism I had wrapped around my heart as a young mother.

​Today’s readings speak of the Lord’s forgiveness and his gentle mercy. When Peter asks about forgiveness, Jesus tells him to forgive not just seven times but seventy-seven times—a call to infinite mercy. A mother’s life is full of daily forgiveness—the spilled milk, the lost temper, quick apologies, and immediate offering of grace to the child. We forgive our children and allow them to try again. This is our seventy-seven times of daily life.

​Yet we so rarely extend that same seventy-seven-times grace to ourselves. Instead, we bitterly judge ourselves for our own shortcomings, carrying a heavy burden of shame that the Lord never intended us to bear.

​Refusing to forgive yourself of your mistakes is, in a subtle way, rejecting the work of Christ whose life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension have paved the way for you to be reconciled to the Father. Holding on to past mistakes chips away at your joy and steals your capacity to mother in freedom and peace. God intentionally made us human, finite and frail. He made us this way so that we would depend on him! Perfection is not a prerequisite for holiness.

​There is a healthy guilt that recognizes our faults and sins and draws us to the sacrament of reconciliation. This is good! But there is also a toxic shame—fed by pride and perfectionism—that whispers lies to us that we are irredeemably flawed. We must bring that shame to the confessional, too. Let the Lord speak truth over us through the torrential grace of the sacrament. Our motherhood will never be flawless. Our goal should shift from perfection to faithful presence. Embrace the humility of being human. We will fall short daily, but daily we are given the grace to get up, to try again, and to choose love. We must give ourselves the grace that God so freely gives today, and rest in the truth that he built us with limitations, so that his strength could shine through them.