I was what felt like fifteen months pregnant with my third child. I also had a toddler of about three and a half, plus a two-year-old. Hormones raged through my bloodstream, my back hurt, I could hardly walk, and I had a pregnancy-induced headache.

But even without all that, the day would have been ugly.

My husband was gone all that Sunday morning at church meetings. The kids fought and screamed and threw tantrums. My cute little two-year-old decided she was mad at me—likely for something along the lines of not letting her beat up her older brother again—and in retaliation, she smugly left puddles of pee all over the house.

She was potty trained by this point, but knew exactly how to push my Mommy-buttons.

The house was a wreck, the kids wouldn’t listen to me, and I was holding down the fort alone. How in the world could I be expected to get the crew ready for church? Why should I bother getting them ready for church, when I was such an obvious failure as a mother?

I collapsed on one of the bottom stairs next to the kitchen and burst into tears. I had two kids I was already failing at raising, and a third ready to pop out. What was I thinking?

The future looked beyond bleak. From here on out, things could only get worse.

And then something happened: Without any prompting, my son took his breakfast bowl and spoon from the table and put them into the dishwasher. I gawked at him in amazement.

He had never done such a thing without multiple promptings/naggings. Not until this moment, when I needed to know so badly that at least one of my kidlets paid the slightest attention to what I was trying to teach them.

Granted, putting a bowl and spoon away wasn’t the biggest of life lessons I hoped to bestow as a mother, but at the moment, I’d take it. I’d take anything that resembled a rope I could hold onto, any sign that I wasn’t a dismal failure.

But I still needed some sign beyond this that the choices I had made were good and right and that I wasn’t crazy for wanting to be a mother. That these people I had been given charge of wouldn’t regret having me to nurture them.

The bowl and spoon didn’t turn my day around; I knew that motherhood meant so much more, so I was still teary-eyed as I cleaned up the pee, Lysol-ed the floor, and got the kids and my abundant self ready for church.

When we arrived, the family filed into a pew and sat down. I’ll never forget the opening hymn: “Home Can Be a Heaven on Earth.”

Someone is mocking me, I thought, unable to sing as my throat constricted and tears blurred the words. Home and heaven don’t belong in the same breath.

As the meeting went on, I gave my son some crayons and paper to doodle on to keep him happy and quiet—a Herculean expectation for a rambunctious little person.

Near the end of the meeting, a woman spoke. I don’t remember much about her talk besides how she bemoaned that her brother had lost his faith in God and now challenged her faith. As she spoke, she quoted him repeatedly saying, “How can there be a God if . . .”

After she said this phrase several times, my little guy popped his head up from his artwork and leaned toward me. With a shake of his head, he let out a scoff, then whispered, “Mom, WE know there’s a God.” With another sad shake of his head, he returned to his crayons.

I sat there, a feeling of joy shooting through me that was so strong it was almost painful.

Who cared if he ever put his dishes away again?

Who cared if his sister kept making puddles for revenge?

The most important thing I could possibly pass on to my children was a belief in a loving God.

My son had that.

A single thought came to mind, and this time I believed it: You’re doing fine.

I wrapped my arm around his little shoulders and kissed the top of his head. “That’s right,” I whispered back. “We know there’s a God.”