Tag: freedom

The heartbreaking thing every mom is ashamed to admit

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Not quite the photo I envisioned. 🙂

The painful honest shameful truth is that I was disappointed in motherhood from the moment I saw that second little pink line.  When I expected a rush of pure joy and excitement, what I got was a sloppy mix of fear and unworthiness, speckled with elation. I didn’t feel the way I expected to, or felt I should. Many of even the sweetest moments of parenting have been mixed with something sour and strange.

I felt disappointed when I didn’t have the clarity of mind to soak in my first moments with each new baby.  I felt disappointed that I cared about things that don’t matter – like what someone else thinks about my parenting or the way pregnancy and breastfeeding would effect my body.

I felt disappointed in myself for not cherishing my swelling belly, and instead worrying about how I would look after giving birth. I was disappointed in myself for stepping on the scale too often.  I hated that I cared…but I did.

Warring thoughts collided:  the blessing and the cost, the privilege and the sacrifice.

Even as I type, I fend off the thought that my words appear selfish, ugly, harsh to your eyes.  I write in faith that you might need to know you’re not the only one.

There have been moments when I felt I should be relishing in ecstatic bliss over my children, and instead I felt empty, lonely, lost.  There were postpartum days when I felt crazy and feared I would never feel like myself again. There were days when I looked upon a child I birthed, and they felt like a stranger.  There are days I feel like it’s barely worth it to try to have fun together, because we’re so likely to end in tears.

I’ve felt disappointed each time the idyllic scene I pictured when I planned an activity for my children was lost to a scene of whines and wet pants and bloody knees.

I felt disappointed the first time it didn’t come naturally to throw my arms around my child – the first time I had to choose to be affectionate towards them because some distaste for their behavior had crept into my spirit. And I think the heaviness that can rest on our shoulders as mamas so often comes because we thought it was supposed to look some other way.  We thought we would burst with fondness for them every minute. We thought we would remember every minute what a gift our children are. We thought we would stop caring about trivial things when they stood against the immense value of raising up the next generation. We thought we would never yell, or even feel inclined to. We thought we would have more patience and grace. We thought we would look different, feel different, be different as a mother.

The weight of it can ravage our souls.

No space exists for these feelings when mamas fight for years just to get one of those second pink lines.  No space exists for these thoughts when we know so profoundly that children are a gift, a heritage, a treasure.  And so, rather than give these thoughts and feelings any space, they silently breed shame, and wreak havoc on our sense of self-worth.  They discreetly curse us and tell us we’re unworthy of the children we’re given, convince us we’re the worst mom.

We need to hold fast to gratitude.  But not as a bandaid…

And friend, there’s no denying, I brought a lifetime of expectations into this motherhood thing, and face a million little heartbreaks over the ways I don’t live up, or the ways my life doesn’t look like I thought it should. A million moments of envy of the mom who seems to be doing it better.  We need to never lose sight of the blessing, but in order to thrive as mamas, I think we also need to validate the pain and disillusionment of this journey looking so exceedingly different than we thought it should.

Only as I recognize, grieve, and release my expectations… Only as I make peace with my actual life… am I beginning to taste freedom and experience the fullness of joy in the reality of my days as a mom.  

I know some of you have faced the deepest pain and tragedy on your parenting journey.  If you have lost a child, faced infertility, or have a child with special needs and face the ongoing grief of missed milestones and experiences, I see you… our Father God sees you.  My heart breaks with yours, and I know God’s does too.  I know that your fractured hopes and expectations and dreams are a present reality in each day of your life this side of heaven.  There are real pains that leave real holes.

But there are these other pains that just come, just blow in with the wind, idealistic expectations simply a result of not knowing better.

I think many of us just thought this road would be easier, that we would be stronger.

Though I’m sure everything looks reasonably close to perfect from the outside, in my motherhood journey, I have often flip-flopped between bliss and angst.  One moment, I feel the abundance of blessing and joy.  The next moment I feel overwhelmed and ill-equipped and beaten down.

My real-life mama story is often a journey of failure and weakness, and strength in Christ alone.  My real-life default is to drown in worry and fear, and I am in continuous battle of surrender, entrusting my children to God’s care, over and over.

In my real story, I am often disappointed, and I have to lay my expectations down each and every day, so God can show me the the gift I was missing.

My real days are full of gathering up grace for each moment, because I’m desperate for it.  And when I let go and see the world through my children’s eyes of wonder, real life moments of magic and euphoria surprise me.

My real story is one of discovering some of the ugliest corners of my soul, and letting God’s light shine on them.  In my real story, I sometimes want to run away, and it is pure sacrifice to enter in.

And in my real story, when the world says I’m trapped because I can’t pee by myself, I say I’ve never been more free.  In my real story, I’m discovering things about myself that make me feel I was absolutely made for this.  In my real actual life, my dreams and goals and ambitions don’t disappear, but grow and morph and bend with each season of my family.

In real life, joy comes in dying to myself, abundance comes in sacrifice, peace comes in surrender, fun comes only when I set aside the relentless pressure to live up to my expectations and the ones I perceive from the world.

In my real story, motherhood has driven me into deeper intimacy with my Father God than I ever could have imagined.  Truthfully, the extraordinary privilege of raising my children pales in comparison to the deep intimacy with my King, the sweetness of dependence, trust, surrender that motherhood has required of me.     The greatest joy has come when I can get over myself and my expectations, and I embrace my imperfect children as their imperfect mama on our imperfect journey together.

And I realize it’s ultimately the same journey for every one of us…whether we have children or not, whether we run a company or a country or a classroom or a home or some tangled mix…it’s the same journey of God winning our hearts.  It’s the same call to lay our life down to find it.  

So mamas, what if we’re not doing it all wrong, and this broken and sloppy road is exactly what God intended for motherhood?  What if He knew in His ultimate sovereignty that the only way we could stop trying to BE the Savior, and start pointing our children to their Savior in Jesus is if we were sickeningly aware of our weakness? What if this is what God meant when He said to Paul “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”(2 Corinthians 12: 9)? What if our lostness is where we are found? What if our shattered dreams are what drive us to be the mothers that God intended? And what if we release our children to be the miracles God made them to be as we let go and let them be unique and different with desires and dreams and traits way outside of our comfort zones?

I’m not saying that God delights in making our journey difficult.  He is near to our hearts, and leads us tenderly (Isaiah 40: 11).  But I believe that our expectations – the ones that say that motherhood is supposed to be easy, pretty and fun in all the moments – these expectations steal our joy, and rob us of God’s joy and grace in the difficult but immensely beautiful days with young children.
I believe God has a bedraggled and beautiful adventure for you today, sweet friend.  Rather than holding onto the story we thought we were supposed to be living, let’s consider being led on a journey of surprise, adventure, and deep intimacy with our King.

 

More on releasing our children from our unrealistic expectations next week…

 

 

Mama, this is how you know God is after your heart… (And a GIFT!)

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This morning I woke swimming in the mystery of life and motherhood…so heavy with burden and responsibility, so light with games of peek-a-boo and spontaneous dancing.  So emptied out of energy and time and space and refreshment, so full of laughter and wonder and silly conversation.  Despite the palpable beauty and the irrefutable blessing, there is a darkness that can cast shadows on a mama’s joy, and that leads us to live a shadow of the blessing intended for us.

There is the feeling of invisibility and having no visible achievement to show for the mothering of the day. There are sleepless nights and impossible pressures.  There are fits and messes, and the hurry of the world clashing with the maddening sloooow of children who don’t see the big deal about putting on shoes. There is the crushing inadequacy, the fear of the dangers and hardships our children could face. There is the tension of being a mom, with enormous influence and utter lack of control over future and faith and safety.

There are the yoga pants and minivans, the feelings of smallness and un-chicness. There is the lack of understanding from the boss or the dinner party host. There is the impossible-to-explain importance of a naptime. There is the intense grind of chores and meals and sports schedules, and endless driving. There is the hopelessness of keeping up, the discouragement of failure, the laying down your life in the most imperceptible ways. There is the absence of instruction or feedback. There are the postpartum hormones and breastfeeding struggles that everyone has but no one likes to admit, and everyone seems to forget by the time their youngest is out of diapers.

Something in me cries out for someone to see, for someone to understand the chaotic mystery I’m trying to live, somehow with intention and purpose.  Maybe like me, you yearn for someone to understand the strangeness of stumbling for coffee and trying to piece together a seemingly sloppy mess of moments into a story leading little souls to the feet of Jesus…shaping the next generation with the same handful of moments that can so easily be shaped by prolonged fatigue, grumpiness, and the inexplicable experience of “mommy brain.” All we’ve learned about life and faith and work seems to short-circuit in days of pure survival with tiny people.

And yet, our lives will be made up of a series of these mostly ordinary moments.  What might it look like to live these moments fully alive?  What might it mean to find God in the mess, instead of waiting for the mountaintop?

 

The days of a mother are full of things to distract us or keep us from the gift… I have to think that the secret to joy is not in pretending they aren’t there.  I have to believe that a feeling of purpose and fulfillment is not in finding enough affirmation.   I think the joy and peace and purpose we long for are just on the other side of surrender.

The key to unlocking joy and abundance in the midst of this motherhood thing – it lies hidden within our deepest cries and our desperate longings.

 

I believe God whispers to our hearts in the places that cry out the loudest.

 

As I open my ears to hear, I begin to notice God’s gentle whisper beckoning me to his heart – into deeper intimacy with Him – through the very things I thought were there to steal my joy.  I invite you to tune in and listen to how God is calling to your heart right in the middle of your mess…

As your human limits slap you right across the face…when two eyes, two ears, two hands are never enough to meet all of the needs… When you crash into bed like a force of nature despite the mound of things you “should” be doing…  When fatigue, lack of control, the inability to “fix it” for your kids overwhelm you… May these things drive you to submit to God’s infinite wisdom and sovereignty.  Through our fleshy and finite humanness, God calls us to know his omnipotent kingship.  God beckons our hearts through our weakness.

As you feel claustrophobic with small people hanging on you or talking ceaselessly, may you feel wooed into the safety and quiet of God’s presence. There was a time it was sheer discipline to remember to seek quiet in my day… it now feels like survival. I think of Jesus with the sick and desperate crowding against him as I feel the constant needs of my children assailing me. I think of newlywed days in a crowd and wishing to be alone with my love. God calls to our hearts through the pressure of our days…may you feel the longing ache to draw away and be alone with Him, the Lover of your soul. God beckons our hearts through the relentless pressure. 

As your sense of identity seems to slip through your fingers…  When everyone talks to your baby as if you are merely a backdrop…  When no one notices that you never got to sit down for the meal… When so much of your life, worries and fears, longings and hopes, service and heartbreak – so much is unseen… may you hear God’s whisper that he sees.  We are drawn into a life of self-sacrifice, before one set of eyes, the eyes of Our Heavenly Father. We are invited into a secret romance with him, and it’s all a dance of worship. God beckons our hearts through invisibility.

For this generation, there is a relentless unspoken law of “good mom.”  When the expectations to do everything right are crushing you, and your constant failure bombarding you…  If you fail to be the mom you want to be, and you are haunted by the thought of sweet little eyes seeing you do it all wrong… may you be washed in the truth that our shepherding is about our imperfection pointing to the perfection of Jesus, our weakness pointing to Christ’s strength.  May you be beckoned by the whisper that says it’s all about grace.   God calls us to security and confidence based not in our performance, but in our identity as His daughter. We are transformed by a keen and constant understanding of our need, and an hourly dependence on our Rescuer Jesus.  God beckons our hearts through our failure.

When you are frustrated by your child’s agonizing slowness and distractibility… may you be beckoned by the invitation to wonder and delight.  When you struggle to get them to focus, may you melt into their intoxicating giggles.  Children are Jesus’ example of the liberation intended for our hearts.  We are invited back to the magic of a butterfly.  We are beckoned by an enthusiastic attitude of “Do it again!” We have a picture of the faith Jesus describes, in which our confidence comes from knowing we’re loved, not by our performance. Accepting grace comes easily, love is assumed.  They move slow, are open to interruptions, are infinitely forgiving.  This posture opens up endless possibilities for encountering the Spirit of God, living in gratitude.  Children delight in every little thing of God’s creation.  God beckons our hearts through our child’s eyes of unhurried wonder.

As parents, we have everything to lose.  Fear of real or imagined danger and loss can be debilitating.  Every time we must let our children go to some new adventure or unknown circumstance, it is as if our hearts are ripped right out and given legs.   We are all Abraham laying Isaac on the alter because we believe God keeps his promises, and have nowhere else to turn (Genesis 22).  We are all Jochabed putting Moses in a basket on the Nile because we have no other choice (Exodus 2).  We could let this feeling trap us and paralyze us from joy-filled living, or we can listen for the whisper that gently says “I set the stars in place (Job 9:9, Psalm 8:3).”  We could tune into the voice that says “I know every hair on their heads (Luke 12: 7).”  We could listen for the One who says “They can never leave my presence, and I am the only one able to hem them in (Psalm 139).”  Though we don’t have a promise for perpetual safety and ease, we have a promise that God is near, and God is good.  God beckons us through our desperation for His covering over our children.

Days and nights full of laundry and dishes and lunch boxes and diapers and driving…they have a mind-numbing repetitiveness.  We could spend them waiting bitterly for a better life to begin, but I’m beginning to see that the mindless tasks can become like repeating a worship refrain. As we build up our muscle memory for folding shirts and loading the dishwasher, we can build a spirit memory of openness and adoration.  We can fold a shirt giving thanks for the one who wears it.  We can pack the lunch or scrub the pot giving thanks for strong arms for our task.  God beckons us with the repetitive refrain of our day, inviting us to sing a song of worship with our hands.  

God is after your heart, Mama. I pray for eyes to see the wild pursuit.

 

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When you need to be birthed into a more human way of living

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The hours and days immediately after birth, I felt spilled out like the hidden contents of a purse. I didn’t know I had anything to hide until I felt so poignantly exposed.

It wasn’t the physical nakedness so much as the nakedness of writhing in pain before an audience, the rawness of screaming and pushing, the humility of losing control of my bodily functions, the shear humanness that I had no idea about…the things that I had no concern for in the moment, but afterwards made me feel like a wild animal who could not regain her dignity as a “lady.”

I treasured and cherished the days that followed my first birth.  But the tidy, middle class American life I had known floated up into the stale hospital air, as I was birthed into the fleshier side of things.  My everything ached, and my body felt strange and foreign, my belly suddenly a bowl of Jell-O, and nursing this little stranger with parts of my body that had never served this purpose. I felt bizarrely empty missing the life that had dwelled within for so many months, and abundantly full holding this member of my family, with whom I suddenly couldn’t imagine life without.

In the subsequent weeks, hormones flared, emotions spilled, joy and sadness, elation and terror, blessing and loss of what was known, giddiness and despair all collided in a messy heap in the walls of a physical body I did not recognize.  And the normalness of the experience – that most women have been through it – did not make it feel an ounce more normal.

This…is motherhood? I would never trade it, but this feeling that I would never be able to climb back into the skin and spirit I used to walk in – it created a flurry in me that I couldn’t ignore.

The world began to spin with a new depth and beauty and heaviness and fear – life with a new fleshiness.

If your mama’s story is one of adoption, I imagine your first days felt similarly messy. Showered with congratulations, while wrestling with feeling raw and exposed with all the feelings and fears, questions and invisibility of the experience that feels so much the same and so much different from other birth experiences.

Birth, new life, growing a family – it’s divinely beautiful, transcendent…

but not tidy.

For me, the experience has become a bit of a metaphor for life. There are these moments when we are faced with a loss of innocence, learning that life this side of heaven can be painful and grueling, that our bodies are fragile and temporary, that God’s intention cannot be for us to keep it all together and do our best to avoid the hard parts.

There are these moments when we realize the ones we love can hurt us and can be hurt, and that we actually cannot make guarantees for tomorrow.

We come to learn that our life and interactions with one another here on earth look less like painting a slow and well-designed landscape and more like splattering our mess of vibrant and contrasting color at the canvas of God, and letting him make it beautiful.

In the untidy days after birth, and the days like them, there is a freedom in the spilling out of our humanness – physically, emotionally, spiritually, as our pain and faith and questions and joy and discomfort collide.

Life is messy. Joy is lost when we fight against it, and struggle to squeeze ourselves back into the metaphorical skinny jeans of being tidy and dignified. In moments like this, perhaps freedom is found in letting ourselves be birthed into a more human way of living.

Perhaps freedom is found in admitting that we have never had it all together, even when we pretended to, and we cherish the sacredness of these fully alive moments.

Perhaps joy flows when we let it, rather than creating a buffer so that we feel more in control.

Perhaps there is a love that now bubbles over the rim of a heart that has not fully grown to the new size required of it, and we don’t have to try to fit it all in.  We can just let that love spill all over the floor. Perhaps we let the tears flow, and snuggle all night if we need to, and get on our faces before the Lord with the overwhelming rush of it.

Perhaps we hand our heart over to allow God to hold it and change it’s shape, rather than trying to put it back together in it’s old way.

All of this language, even as I write it, feels a bit lofty and ethereal, even vague, but I believe in the most concrete of ways that there is an intentional “letting go” required, in order to experience the joy and blessing of these messy days.

And maybe all the days are messy – more like birth – if we let them be.

We have to choose to submit our spirits to a God who created us in this unbecoming way – from dust-to-dust. To take any other way is to miss an opportunity to live some of the most alive days we will ever have a chance to. I’ve not lived a lot of years, and I know I’ll look back in another 34 and laugh about how much I thought I knew. But with each year of living, I see a bit more that real life happens in the untidy places. It happens in the deep soul grief, in the moments of uncontrollable happiness, in the spaces where love for someone makes you vulnerable enough to be squashed, and in the moments when you can’t “keep it together.”

I think of King David dancing before the Lord, much to the chagrin of his embarrassed wife (2 Samuel 6: 14).

I think of an undignified father – heart bursting – running and kissing his prodigal son returning home (Luke 15: 20).

I think of a woman anointing Jesus’ feet with her tears and wiping them with her hair in the most unbecoming fashion (Luke 7: 36-38).

I think of a group of friends shamelessly lowering their loved one through a neighbor’s roof in order to reach Jesus (Mark 2: 4).

I think of sitting in a puddle of tears with a friend in grief.

I think of jumping with joy after God has performed a great miracle or answered a desperate prayer.

Real living happens in these untidy, undignified, spilled-out moments.

So, my sweet sister, my heart for you in the days after birth, and all the days that feel like them, is for you to be gracious with yourself, and let the enormity of the Lord wash over your smallness.  Lean into the sloppiness of it.

Whether or not you have ever given birth in the physical, or ever will, let yourself soak in the moments of your heart not being large enough to hold your love for your people… the moments when you feel your humanness and the mess of life spilling out all over the place, and invite the big-enough God to hold you. Climb into His lap like a toddler after a nightmare.

Let Him minister to your quaking heart.

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A gift for the mama feeling pressure to do and be everything

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Several days ago, when winter was still heavy on us, before the springtime air rushed in and refreshed every fiber…I had one of those days when everything felt like entirely too much.  I scurried in the door on that bitter February morning, and could still feel the wind cutting through me and stinging my nose. But something cut deeper still, swept right through and left a mess of me…

Too many of my things that morning came from a place of “should” or “have to.” Too many of my things came from wanting to be productive, a “good mom,” to have something to show for my day, or to win some imaginary battle for someone’s approval (that was likely never in danger).

 

There is something in the air that presses on a mother, making her feel that the weight of the world is on her shoulders and like she has to do it all right.

Pressure piles, and says “Do all the things.” Guilt sinks deep, and says “You are never enough.” Sometimes this thing turns my eyes inward and threatens my joy.
Do you feel it, sister?
And no matter what “they” say…the “shoulds” and “have tos” are shifting sand. I don’t know about you, but I need some more solid ground to stand on.

 

I have to think it’s getting harder to be free in this mom space.  Courageous women have fought long and hard to lay claim to the freedom and value and beauty and equality given us by God, from voting rights and sports and career and salary and leadership and in all the ways…

We are equal!  And all one in Christ.  (Gal 3: 28)

I love how Jesus so beautifully offered equal love and acceptance and value and appreciation and calling to the women he encountered, in a culture that said and did the opposite.  Jesus was the first on the battleground of women’s liberation…women’s freedom.

Heaven rejoices as women find their voice…the voice they were always meant to have.

But I’m afraid that somewhere along the way, motherhood shrunk into the shadows a bit. Now that women can do anything, we can too easily feel pressure to do everything.

 

The world is loud with all we can and should do.

 

If you listen to the noise, you might feel pressure to have the babies and the perfect body; to be strong but not prickly; to do the house, the laundry, the cooking, the teaching and shepherding; to do the sports, the girl scout troop, the volunteering, the picture-perfect Christmas cards, the leading, the hosting, the crafting, the blogging, the class cupcakes and Valentines; to have the dream career, earn the full-time income and do the full-time mom thing (or one or the other, depending on the day); to be a fun friend and an adoring wife, intelligent and professional, but not too uptight.  Also, be a laid-back mom, but not so laid back that your kids get rowdy, or hurt…

And, by the way, the noise says that most of this is just a side note to what you’re really doing with your life.

 

I’m exhausted just writing it. And, you and I both know that list could be so much longer.

 

It feels like expectations have been added, but none removed.  I’m not talking about working because you love it, or because you’re providing needed income for your family. I’m not talking about making time for the things you love, and how it leaves your schedule a little full. I’m not talking about Saturday mornings full of the joy of watching your little people run their hearts out on the soccer field.

I’m just trying to put a name to whatever it is for each of us that brings that gut-deep hollowness that says “You’re not doing enough.”

 

One of the things that inspired me to begin writing for mothers is this thing I see happening to our spirits…this pressure to do All The Things.

 

On days when it feels a small miracle to put on clothes, All The Things still press in on me.

 

At times in my mom journey, I have found myself in a perpetual cycle of self-criticism. I feel weak if I get help with cleaning, or less-than if I have to say “No” to the baseball league or piano lessons, as it feels that everyone else has their children in sports and lessons of every kind from about age 3.

You might feel inadequate because other moms seem more on top of life, or you think the other moms must never yell at their kids, or because the other moms went organic.  Or you haven’t greeted your husband well, or hosted the dinner, or showed up to the party, or returned the phone call…and it all weighs on you.

Maybe you feel guilty for not keeping up with doctor’s appointments or homework or the kids’ dental hygiene. Maybe you showed up at the doctor’s office and fumbled over birthdays, or found out your child had a fever you didn’t know about. Or, like me, you didn’t know the answers to half the questions about whether your child knows his last name or the parts of his body.

Since when is this a milestone? I missed the memo.

 

We might compare ourselves to the mom who has daily devotions with her children, or the one who wears real clothes and mascara every day. Or we envy the mom whose body snaps right back after having a baby.

 

Social media can be a flood of perfect pictures and extravagant birthday parties and family outings and magazine-ready living rooms and put-together mamas. As we take in pretty images of other’s lives, we have more material against which to judge ourselves and our families.

 

And the isolation that often comes with the little years can distance us from other mom’s hearts that say “me too.” When you’re alone, it’s easier to trust your snap judgments that have you convinced you’re the only one falling behind…the only one failing.

 

I have to believe that our days as mothers are not meant to be shadowed by guilt and regret and self-criticism, by comparison and pressure.

 

The pressure to be a certain kind of mom – or all the kinds of moms – leads me to do all kinds of things I don’t need to be doing. I can wander into the dangerous zone of boundary-less-ness, feeling like I should do everything and be everything…

 

There is this illogical drive to be all the most perfect versions of a mom – to somehow have the best parts of every mom I’ve ever met.  I want to be the crafty mom, and the organized mom, the creative mom, the let-your-kids-cook-with-you mom (AHH!), the PTA mom, the easygoing “they’ll be fine” mom, the mom with the color-coded calendar, and the spontaneous road-trip mom, the clean-house mom and the mom who is totally present for the puzzles and dance parties.  I want to be the mom who always responds quickly to her friend’s text messages and the mom who is not on her phone when her kids are around.

I want to be the right kind of hostess – the one with the idyllic calm, the homemade snacks and the fresh coffee.

And the right kind of wife – or every kind of wife – the perfect housewife and the wife with exciting dreams, the elegant and fun wife, and the wife unfazed by the undignified nature of days full of spit up and temper tantrums.   I want to be the wife who is not caught up in her appearance and also the wife who can walk confidently and feel sexy after five babies.

I can easily fall into a continuous state of failure.

 

The cards have been dealt on the handful of things I’m good at and all the ones I’m not.  I think freedom is just being the one kind of mom and human God made me.  The necessities of life go on, and I actually can’t be in all the places at once.  I think freedom looks like letting myself just be in the one place doing the one thing.

“Be everything to everyone” makes me bitter. It makes life feel arduous, and I begin to choke on every need or demand anyone has of me.

 

If I let myself live under this kind of pressure, it leaves me longing for easier days, for affirmation, and frankly, for everyone to leave me alone. This is the pressure that makes me want to run away. Those are the days when the constant comments at the grocery store about how my “hands are full” nearly crush me.  Do you have days like that, friend?

 

Mamas, we must make a strong choice to reject these lies of pressure to do and be All the Things, and we must be washed in a new truth:

We were never meant to be everything.

 

If the weight of being everything is on our shoulders… If we were meant to fix the world for our children and everyone else… If it was our job to save their hearts, and satisfy them in every way… then Jesus died for nothing.

 

We were made human and finite and dependent and weak, on purpose. Raising our children to believe that their mamas can do everything and fix everything and be everything is a surefire way to lead them into the heart of disappointment.

But teaching our children how to move slow, how to trust that we were only meant to be in one place at a time, how to be free to be weak and in desperate need of a Savior.

This is a lesson that lasts.

And their Savior Jesus will never disappoint.

 

We were never meant to be everything. And we cannot write the whole story of the lives of our children. Under the loving care of the Infinite God, we have a specific and limited role.

 

As mothers, we were given a measure of authority, but God holds their hearts and spirits. As humans, we have an opportunity to partner with God in beautiful works…

but we run ourselves ragged in vain.

 

God has the role of winning the hearts of our children. Jesus came to save their souls. Our Father in Heaven holds them. He knows where each precious child fits.

 

The Almighty God has the role of being everywhere at once. We can just be in one place.  If we choose the wrong one, He can handle keeping the world spinning another day.

Today, be free to be just the mama you are…good at the things you’re good at and not at the things you’re not.

Today, be free to be in one place at a time.

Today, let your Heavenly Father carry the weight of the safety and future and faith of your children. Let God hold all the people and places that seem to need you.

The pressure is off, sweet friend. Go, enjoy your freedom!

 

 

How to love the Messy and Crazy that crushed your Christmas dreams

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This one comes with the sounds of tearing paper and children’s delighted squeals still ringing in my ears. This one comes with sweet flavors of Christmas treats still lingering on my tongue. This one comes with bits of paper and ribbon still on the floor.

This one comes with a heart full of family and laughter and the joy of giving and receiving. This one comes with Christmas carols still hummed under my breath. And children in new clothes. And new treasured toys resting in their new spaces in our home. This one comes with heart still pumping the magic of Christmas through my veins.

This one comes with Christmas lights still twinkling in the corner of my eye, and sparks of anxiety and too-much-ness of the season still trying to make a mess of me. We made it through Christmas day. We made sweet memories and everyone had something to open, and our bodies and home survived the chaos.

But the photos that tell a story of how we lived the idyllic front of a Christmas card – they don’t tell the whole story…

Because Christmas in real life means your Advent devotional comes with potty breaks and baby’s cries.

Christmas in real life means your two-year-old thinks that baby Jesus is just “really cute” and that must be why we can’t stop talking about him.

Christmas in real life means that you spend the morning preparing for the perfect Christmas-y outing only to realize that you drove away from the house with that perfectly packed bag sitting on the counter.

Christmas in real life means that any attempts to simplify or buy less leave us feeling like the salmon swimming upstream, getting bloodied with all the “What is Santa bringing YOU?” and “What’s on your Christmas list?” and “What do you WANT for Christmas?”

And Christmas in real life means wrestling with wanting all the magic for your children but wondering when Christmas became all about ME and all the stuff I want?  Wondering how to teach them to be grateful…to be givers.

Christmas in real life means that all the magic comes alongside head and heart swirling with friends grieving lost ones and a divided nation and Syrian mamas just like me, desperate to cover their precious ones under their wings.

Christmas in real life means that the good news of Christ’s coming hasn’t quite reached the spaces in your soul where there is pain and loss, loneliness, heartbreak, or broken dreams.

This one comes with a heaviness that even the magic of Christmas is hard to embrace as the world spins another day with all it’s heaviness and weariness.  And I sometimes find myself envying the innocence of my children, and the purity of their joy and delight.

This one comes with waves of sinking condemnation wondering if my children missed the point – if we did it all wrong. If we gave too many gifts, or the wrong ones. If we did enough to help the poor. If we spent too much money. If we did too much Santa. If they saw too much of my stress and not enough of my presence through the season of Advent. If they would have been happier just to have me, and not so much of the cookies and the crafts and the gifts and the decorations and the perfect photos.

Christmas in real life means you sometimes question the things you’re teaching your children, about how Jesus came to bring peace and freedom, light and love, grace and truth. And most of the gift of teaching them is in allowing them to teach it back to you.

And the lie of the camera and trying to live out the idyllic, tidied-up front of the Christmas card is not so much that it is too good, it’s that it’s not good enough. That picturesque scene doesn’t reach down to the broken parts of my soul – truthfully, it either makes me feel like a failure or makes me feel like a fraud. The perfect Christmas doesn’t capture the story of our real God who cares about our real lives and came down into the mess to shine light into our darkness and speak life into our dead places.

Jesus didn’t come to speak into the picturesque Christmas. The truth of the nativity is that it was dirty and smelly and uncomfortable. And I think the truth of God’s Christmas story is that that’s the point. He gets it. He sees us. He’s not fooled by our perfect Instagram post. He knows that our hearts need more answers than how many “likes” we get. He knows that being loved for our tidied up best doesn’t heal our wounds of rejection, and questions of our worth.

We need to be known in our mess and loved in our mess to know love at all.

And our God knows that our deepest desire is not for a perfect Christmas tree, but for a perfect Savior…who died messy on a tree so that we could live.  He knows that our heart’s cry is not for a perfect family photo, but for a perfect love that covers over all of our ugliness.

Jesus didn’t come to be born in a stable so that the nativity scene would make the perfect Christmas card, he came small and messy to be the answer to our real, messy, smelly and sometimes tragic lives.

On my real life Christmas morning, there were moments of pure joy and delight. And moments when someone peed on the floor.

On my real life Christmas morning, children squealed and ran to give hugs of gratitude upon opening a gift. And children fought and cried over liking each other’s gifts better than their own.

On my real life Christmas morning, we all got dressed in our best red and green. And the baby spit up all over my first two outfits.

On my real life Christmas morning, the big kids enjoyed a lip-smacking batch of French toast while the toddler got ahold of a pack of gum, from which she ate several pieces with the wrapper on, choked, and threw up all over my purse and a pile of clean laundry. You won’t see that one on a Christmas card…

I could so easily let the messy moments disappoint me or take away from what Christmas is “supposed to be.”  Or I can let the messy moments shift my focus to see that Christmas was never supposed to just be pretty.

Don’t get me wrong…I love the beauty of white lights lining a home, or the gold and red ornaments on a tree.  I love the elegance of a poinsettia, and the way a Christmas carol warms my soul.  These are sweet gifts of beauty that symbolize the true and deep beauty of the season.  But the truth is our lives don’t tidy up for a perfect Christmas Day.  We still get stomach aches, and we grieve lost loved ones, and we change diapers, and kids throw tantrums.  And the real beauty of Christmas is that is the world that Jesus chose to enter into with us.

The sweetness of the messy moments is that God spoke straight to them by leaving his throne to sleep in a manger surrounded by smelly animals.

The magic of Christmas is not that it’s pretty, but that it lets us be ugly. It’s not that it’s tidy, but that it lets us be messy. The magic is that God took on flesh and chose to live our real life alongside of us to become our perfect rescuer, who knows and understands our weakness and our struggle and our mess.  This is the true magic of Christmas.

“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4: 16)  

Freedom for those up close and personal moments

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A sweet little voice from the backseat reaches my ears as we approach a red light. “Mommy, can we help that woman with the sign that says ‘homeless’?” See, I can tell them that we love the poor, but my tenderheart in the backseat doesn’t want to hear about it. She wants to see it, feel it, touch it, taste it. And I’m suddenly in one of those crises of my intention smashing up against my lack of follow-through. My words and the reality of my life collide in a heap, and I realize again that the most important things are not really taught, but caught. I’m in that sloppy space of needing to mean what I say and say only what I’m ready to live out. This kind of discipleship – the kind where our children learn what it means to live and walk in faith by watching – this kind gets right up in your face.

There was a time in my life when loving others, ministry, discipleship – it all felt tidied up. I could go about my life, and use the free spaces to find opportunities to share about my faith in Jesus. Only the safe, pretty and in-control spaces. Without realizing, I was presenting a story of “Once upon a time life was messy, and then I met Jesus and now it’s tidied up and beautiful.” God was gracious to redeem what I offered, but in the quiet, I think something felt disingenuous. You and I both know that life doesn’t get tidy when we follow Jesus. Life is still a sloppy mess with pain and grief and temptation and disease and broken relationship. Even under God’s covering, and in His hope, life and our own weakness this side of heaven, still hurt and confuse us.

It took some up close and personal relationships to show me that I hadn’t been free. The honest truth is that there is no freedom in offering only the pretty spaces to the world. Only the clean house. Only the made-up face. Only the well-prepared bible study lesson. I felt the pressure of keeping it up. I felt the fear of being “found out.” And those with me likely felt the same.

I faced my first crisis of intention versus reality a number of years ago when life got a little intense. My husband was elected to the State Legislature, I was running a small personal training business, I had recently become a mom, and I was involved in a ministry for high school students, which I was striving to do in the in-between spaces. As my life became more demanding, I began to see that if I only invited those around me to see the pretty parts of my life, I would soon run out of parts to offer. I began to see that the margin for loving anyone from the tidied-up spaces was quickly being squeezed out of my life.  I considered cutting things out to make more pretty space, but I felt that God was leading me in a different direction. I felt that I needed to step in faith, rather than rest on my own strength.

I had always thought that loving others could only come from a put-together life. But in that season, God brought into my path an opportunity that began to change my thinking. I met a young woman looking for a home in which to heal from family hurts, to learn what godly marriage, parenting, family looks like. When this opportunity arose, I was days away from the birth of my second child, and my husband a couple months from his second election. I was working, and had stepped into leadership in several places in the church and community. Life was chaotic and messy. But my husband and I felt a nudge to invite this person in. It felt like a giant step of faith to allow someone into the mess or our home and family life, and to believe that she would see God in the midst.

It’s terrifying to let someone see our life when it is not put together. We want to clean up our bodies and our houses and our lives before we invite someone in. But I found myself wondering what I was really afraid of. If I truly believed I was following Christ in the mess, then there should be evidence…right?  If someone watching can’t see God and lives of faith in the messy times, than we must be lying to ourselves.  So, God challenged me to begin to develop a “come and watch me need Jesus” attitude. Watch my husband and I fall towards one another. Watch us ask each other and our children for forgiveness. Watch us get on our knees with our great need.

And guess what, by God’s grace, this young woman saw us forgiving ourselves and each other. She saw us living beyond ourselves and drawing on God’s grace. She saw us failing in ways that made all of us want less of ourselves and more of Jesus, and it changed her life. And ours.

God is still leading me on this journey – the journey of living fearlessly, and letting His power be made perfect in my weakness.  I’m seeing that I still have layers and layers of wanting to keep it all together for everyone watching.

And motherhood gets right up in my face like nothing ever has. I now have little eyes watching to see if my words come alive in my actions, and seeing all the moments – not just the pretty ones. And it forces me to look right at the truth of my life and how it compares to my words and my intention.

I have to be ready to say what I mean and mean what I say. And I have to be ready to need lots of grace.

I have to be ready to point to the Merciful One, and to teach my children not how to stop being weak, but how to lean our weakness right into the strong chest of God.

I have to be ready to teach them not how to fix our hearts up so we want and seek better things, but to go ahead and die to ourselves. We can just lay our will right down, and let God show us how to align with His will instead.

I have to be ready to teach my children not how to get better and stronger, but how to get right down on our knees and let God wash us again and again in grace through Jesus. This is freedom. I can live the life I intend to live, and not just pretend to. I can flounder and fail, and let God’s grace pick me up. And I can let my children and the world watch the whole thing. I can do more than teach them the Bible lessons (those are good too!), but I can also let them catch from me the freedom of walking in grace.

Yes, motherhood gets right up in our faces where there is no escaping being seen. And so, I’m forced to ask myself the question “Do I believe that I have the spirit of the Living God in me, or not?”

If I believe it, than I truly have nothing to fear. There is freedom to be seen in my broken and redeemed mess. There is no pretending that because I am a follower of Jesus, I no longer struggle with sin and weakness. In motherhood, and in the hardship of real life, I am led to a place of inviting my children (and others) to walk with me on a broken road of needing Jesus every minute. They see me fail and be forgiven over and over and over.

On the fly, I’m constantly led to face not only my intention, but the reality of my heart.  I’m forced to ask what I want my children to see me doing, and then do it.

In a moment when I could have convinced myself that I do care about the poor, but that there’s nothing I can do right now because I’m in a hurry anyway…my children bring me to the feet of Jesus. I face the truth that my intentions and actions are not lining up.

So, after that sweet cry from the backseat about whether we might do something to help, I try something new with my little disciples. I roll down our windows, we say “hello,” ask her name and say a quick prayer for her. My children join me as we offer this woman the dignity of being seen, and a little snack. A simple thing, but one that challenges the way I’ve lived, and the frequent emptiness of my intention. I can’t for a moment feel proud for the change, as I know I would never have done it without the innocent challenge from little lips. I want it to be real for them. And they make me want it to be real for me. I want to live more than a life of good intention.

Motherhood is teaching me that loving others can’t be tidy. There is a kind of discipleship that lets us reflect the greatness of God, by leaning our weakness into God’s strength. There is a way of loving others that lets us be broken, because we lay down our own greatness and point to God’s greatness instead. And God gets the glory as we let him reflect his great glory on the broken mirror of our lives.

In this life that comes with being covered in spit up, with whining and back-talking, and a million hidden things that make us feel so small… we can just be small, so the bigness of God can be seen through us. I imagine sometimes that this life as mama must be a little bit like trying to live with a TV camera in your face. Someone is always there to catch your weakest, ugliest moments – the moments that basic human dignity tells us should happen in private. But when children bust through the bathroom door, or pull off the nursing cover, or yell at us when we are running on an hour of sleep, the challenge to love and disciple them gets really up close and personal.

But if we let the up close and personal moments push us to laugh at our humanness, and be the empty vessels of God’s love.  If we let the moments when we face our inconsistencies to push us to live out our intention, and to say what we mean and mean what we say, then we spread our wings and soar in new freedom.

The real deal on abundant life

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John 10: 10b

…I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (NIV)

…I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (NASB)

…I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of. (MSG)

Full. Abundant.  More and better than we could dream of.  I have read or heard this verse probably a thousand times, in all of it’s versions, about how Jesus came to give us full and abundant life.  Beautiful.  But rarely have I stopped to consider what this kind of fullness and abundance looks and feels like in the reality of my days.  In any version, with any number of interpretations, this verse draws our spirits to the kind of life that we long for – a life that is more and better and fuller than the one we would otherwise know.  Our souls long for the kind of fullness and meaning and satisfaction offered in knowing Jesus as the hero of the story…that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. So, why does life sometimes continue to feel empty and meaningless? Or just busy? Why do we get to the end of the day and wonder what it all was for?  Or lay our tired bodies down and wonder why we’re here?

I’ve been pondering these things in days that seem to be bursting with fullness of every kind. My days right now, with a newborn and four other children under 8 years old, are full in every imaginable way.  FULL of joy.  Full of tears.  Full of noise.  Full of laughter.  Full of boo-boos.  Full of kisses.  Full of love.  Full of hurt.  Full of mistakes.  Full of apologies…Just so full. Life is literally bursting at the seems. I am abundantly blessed. I know that this kind of fullness can’t really be what Jesus means when he says he came to give us full life, but I have a sense that there is something to learn from this place. I think what I am beginning to see is that, although grace though Christ Jesus is absolutely and completely free, the abundant living we are offered comes at a great cost to us. If we cling to our own abundance (of to-do’s, of worry, of fear, of busyness, of control), we miss the abundance that God offers us, and life begins to feel like too much in all the wrong ways.  For me, there are many moments when the fullness of my day does not feel like a gift, when the weight of it feels unbearable, when I don’t have enough hands to help, or eyes to keep watch, or ears to hear stories and questions, or food – never enough food…and I know there must be more to it.  There must be a way that I choose to either step forward into the abundant blessing offered to me through Jesus, or to just sit under an abundant pile of “too much.”  Whether you have a houseful of children, or one child whose needs and future weighs heavy on your heart, or a desk full of work, or an abundance of grief and loss or difficult diagnoses, or you just read the news this morning, the weight of the world can be crushing…abundantly so. So how can we step into a different kind of abundance? An abundance that frees our souls and makes our spirits soar? A fullness that makes us feel untouchable, because our spirits are secure and our feet are firmly planted in love and blessing? An abundance that makes us unable to keep our lips from singing God’s praise because it is just bubbling out of us?

I see that I can receive this kind of abundance only when I make a difficult trade. It costs me everything. I have to trade in the too-muchness of my life that I desperately feel cannot go on without me. I have to let it go…into the hands of God. I must make a choice to relinquish my control and admit that I am not and never will be enough. And only when I bring my brokenness and never-enough to the Lord can I receive the abundance that lets me live through too-full days with a sense of enough! I have to trade in an abundance of worry, submit to the sovereignty of God, and receive an abundance of peace that surpasses my understanding (Philippians 4: 6-7). I have to trade in an abundance of insecurity and self-doubt and let God wash me in an abundance of promises and sweet truths about how he knit me together in my mother’s womb and knew each of my days before I lived even one of them (Psalm 139). I have to trade in the tension and stress that builds with an abundance of fast-pace and noise and needs, and allow God to bring a slowness and rest to my spirit in the midst of it.  Rather than placing my hope in another cup of coffee, I have to lay down my broken, tired body, and allow God to use my emptiness as a vessel for the God who IS love, and the God who never sleeps to pour out his love and grace and energy. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my coffee. But there is a striving of the soul that exhausts beyond sleep deprivation. And there is a freedom of the soul that comes when we allow ourselves to live from inside of the weak and limited fleshy vessels God gave us.

All of this trading requires a difficult trust. It costs me everything that feels like it makes my life work. But I think I’m seeing that the truly abundant life that is offered to us in Christ, is found on the other side of letting go.

Life feels abundant in all new ways lately.  I feel beyond myself in almost every minute of my day, and as I am emptied out, God’s abundance is all I can live on…I need his filling every minute.  And to live in that place of constant dependence on Him is sweet blessing. The abundance that Jesus offers us cannot be “icing on the cake.” We can’t add it on top of our self-sufficiency.  In order to receive the fullness of the grace and peace and joy and love that He offers us, we have to first be empty.

So, today, as the noise builds and the pace quickens, I am abundantly empty of my own ability…and abundantly full of His. Praise be to God.