17 Faith-Filled Resources to Help Your Mental Health as a Mom
When we hold our precious children, we want to love them from a place of strength. We want to carry their big feelings with peaceful, steady spirits of our own. Yet so often, motherhood brings past hurts to the surface. The demands of life feel overwhelming. Sleep deprivation and postpartum changes leave us feeling disconnected from our own bodies. The chaos of the world can cripple us with anxiety for our children’s well-being. It can be a deep struggle to heal, grow, and sustain our mental health as moms.
That’s why it’s significant that May offers an opportunity to honor moms both on Mother’s Day and through Mental Health Awareness Month. It’s the perfect time to look inward and ask:
Am I really okay?
How am I coping with stress?
Is there sadness or despair behind my smile?
Do I struggle to focus, make decisions, or manage my anger?
Am I trying to numb my difficult thoughts and feelings?
When was the last time I felt a spark of joy?
If these questions reveal you’re in a hard place, you’re not alone. I’ve walked the journey of anxiety and depression. I’ve grieved the times I couldn’t show up for my kids the way I hoped. I wondered if the sun would rise in the morning. And I know how hard it can be to open up and ask for what we need.
Yet I also know that in our darkest moments, God looks on us with compassion. Rather than judging our broken places, he meets us in the middle of them all. God wants to help. To listen. To comfort. To heal us and make us new. God is the One we can run to when we need him most.
Today I offer a collection of faith-filled resources to help your mental health as a mom. My hope is that they will help you put your needs and feelings to words in prayer. That they’ll help you to grasp a little hope for tomorrow. And that you will know you’re never alone as you make your way forward.
Help for Anxiety
1. Mama’s Got Anxiety: But It’s Not Going to Steal Her Joy by Courtney Devich
In Mama’s Got Anxiety, fellow anxious mom Courtney Devich helps you understand all the anxious feelings you’re facing so you can cope and take your joy back. Equipping you with biblical hope and encouragement, she shows you:
- The truth to combat the lies you’ve believed about your anxiety
- The strength from God’s Word to face all the feelings and symptoms of anxiety
- How anxiety is not a sign of weak faith or something to be ashamed of
- How God can use your anxiety for good
And don’t miss our podcast interview with Courtney HERE to discover five strategies to cope with anxiety right now!
2. How to Stay Close When Your Spouse Has Anxiety
Anxiety impacts not just the individual, but the spouse who loves them too. In this podcast episode, Michelle Bengtson brings beautiful insight into how to walk through anxiety as a couple.
3. Safe All Along: Trading Our Fears and Anxieties for God’s Unshakable Peace by Katie Davis Majors
As a missionary, wife, and mom of fifteen, Katie Davis Majors knows how hard it can be to receive God’s peace instead of giving in to fear and worry.
In Safe All Along, Katie offers reflections and stories from around the world and from her own kitchen table about her personal journey toward living from a place of surrendered trust. Every chapter leads us deep into Scripture as we learn what it looks like to break free from anxiety and take hold of peace.
Help for Depression
1. How Depression Made an Impact on Our Marriage and Faith
While my battle with depression began as a young girl, it intensified after the birth of our third child. This podcast conversation between Rob and me shares our story of navigating postpartum depression as a couple.
2. I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die by Sarah J. Robinson
Sarah explains that she wrote the book to help you discover:
- How to break free from the shame and stigma of depression, suicidal thoughts, and mental illness. An abundant, hope-filled life can be yours.
- How to get the help you need, even when you feel like you’ve tried everything.
- Why your life doesn’t have to be defined by depression. You’ll learn to find peace in your struggles and a path toward thriving.
- How to reconnect with a God who refuses to leave and partner with him in your own healing.
3. 101 Prayers to Cope with Depression
101 Prayers to Cope with Depression – hardcover
For me, depression didn’t come on its own. It brought a heavy dose of shame as I believed I was a failure. That my faith was weak. That my kids needed a better mom than me. That God must be angry or disappointed that I couldn’t pull myself together. Yet it was in that dark place that God’s love began to shine most brightly. I discovered his love in a way I’d never known.
My collection of prayers, 101 Prayers to Cope with Depression, invites you to carry every hurt to the One who loves you right where you are.
Help through Grief
1. Life Can Be Good Again: Putting Your World Back Together After It All Falls Apart
Lisa Appelo has walked a journey of grief after the loss of her husband, the father to their seven children.
She now offers a powerful ministry to women through speaking and writing, events, and this hope-filled book.
(And don’t miss our debut podcast conversation with Lisa, where she offers wisdom to mother our children through the griefs they suffer too.)
2. Miscarried Hope: Journeying with Jesus through Pregnancy and Infant Loss by Rachel Lohman
Rachel’s mission in ministry to women is to mark a path to hope after suffering through the loss of a child.
If you or a friend has walked through this painful experience, I am so sorry.
I hope this guide can serve as a helpful resource as you process your grief and work towards restoring hope in your heart.
3. Holding On to Hope: A Pathway through Suffering to the Heart of God by Nancy Guthrie
In this book, Nancy Guthrie takes her readers by the hand to lead them through the biblical story of Job. She describes this resource as “A healing book for those in the wake of life’s devastating storms.“
Whether in a group or on your own, you’ll find truth and comfort from God to carry you through your loss.
Help to Manage Anger
1. UnTriggered: 60 Days of Transformation for Moms Who Struggle with Anger
In the stress and strain of motherhood, your well of patience has run dry.
You find yourself irritable and reactive, struggling to capture the gentle peace you’re longing for.
Amber Lia understands, and she offers this book to help you right where you are.
2. The God Hears Her Podcast: Dealing with Anger
On this episode of the God Hears Her Podcast, Elisa Morgan and Eryn Eddy explore the root cause of the anger we feel, and how God can use our emotions to draw us closer to his love and wisdom.
3. 5 Truths that Help Moms Overcome Anger by Grace
Mom, author, counselor, and podcast host Christine Chappell offers this video and companion downloads to help you overcome anger as a woman of faith.
Help with Body Image
1. Transformed: From Lies to Truth by Jennifer Smith Lane
Jennifer Smith Lane shares, “Because I struggled in my own eating disorder recovery to find help, hope and freedom, I am passionate about helping others in their recovery.”
Out of that passion and her expertise in disordered eating, Jen created this 12-session Bible Study to invite you into healing and freedom through Christ.
(And don’t miss our podcast conversation with Jen Lane HERE!)
2. What Does God Say to Those Who Struggle with Body Image?
A key aspect of renewing our hearts and emotions is renewing our mind with God’s Word. Shanda Anderson offers a helpful, biblical perspective on body image in this podcast episode.
Help for Painful Parenting Seasons
1. Every parent has felt blindsided by painful struggles they never saw coming with their child. We pray you will find help to move toward peace in Joanna’s reflections here.
2. We’ve all heard the quote, “A mom is only as happy as her unhappiest child.” In this podcast conversation with Erica Wiggenhorn, she dismantles this belief with a hope-filled, practical pathway to peace in our hard seasons of motherhood.
3. In tough seasons with our kids, the future can seem uncertain. We imagine worst-case scenarios, and our fears cloud the goodness God is knitting into the life of our home. Laurie Davies joins us with words of hope to overcome our worries for our children.
As sisters in Christ, it is my joy to walk this journey of motherhood with you. Reach out any time to share a request for prayer—or a testimony of God’s answer—and know you are prayed for by name. Blessings on you as you care for your children and receive God’s love for you too.
