Tag: pressure

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 find your pace, when you’re an Oh-So-Tired Mama

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On Saturday mornings, I like to take my two eldest daughters for a short run. Typically, the outing transforms into some sort of game or adventure, as it never occurs to them that the magic of moving their bodies should feel like work. They run hard, with reckless abandon.

 

And so, I breathe and soak up their joy. I breathe and allow my bent view of exercise to be straightened and redeemed by the light of God in these tiny faces.

 

Almost without fail, at some point, my four-year-old will ask if I will carry her. This comes without warning, as she never slows down, but simply runs her heart out until she can no longer. And when her legs give way, she innocently and joyfully lifts her arms to me. She collapses into the rest of my arms, as if to recharge in my strength, as if to relearn her identity as my daughter, as if to reclaim the security of not being alone.

 

Then back to a sprint. There is no fear of tiring, because she has the assurance that I will not. Her hope is in my presence.

 

Though I attempt to explain that finding a steady pace will help my girls to run farther, they prefer their way. After all, their reckless abandon is what makes their youth so beautiful, so free. And for these sweet minutes, my spirit rejoices to join them in their freedom.

 

But I also know the truth that, perhaps unlike a small child, I need to bring a different wisdom and regulation to my running…knowing that my own legs will need to carry me home. And to some extent the same seems true in life, as we grow up and responsibilities pile…

 

Something in my spirit wrestles with wanting to run each day with reckless abandon, but knowing that I cannot exhaust myself, that I will need to keep going, that my children could wake in the night, that the alarm clock will buzz in the morning, that the work of the day will be repeated, that I will need rejuvenation to be a gracious mama. Truths about how God never tires, and can renew our strength beat against truths that Jesus himself drew away to be alone with the Father, and that God grants rest to those He loves. I find myself unsure about whether I should be forcing more rest into my days, or pushing harder to collapse at the end of every day, having given it all.

 

“He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.” – Isaiah 40:11

 

When I first read this verse, I saw myself in the lamb, and the thought of being carried close to the heart of God was salve to my soul. Since becoming a mama, this verse has changed for me, and I have been washed in the pleasantness of God’s gentle heart towards mamas.

 

But today, an interesting distinction jumps from the page and impresses on my heart. Those who have young, the mamas, are no longer carried, but led… The Shepherd leads, and we follow with our little lambs in our care.

 

And so, I wonder if wisdom would lead us to a change the way we run our race in such a season.

 

One thing I know we mamas have in common is that we are so unavoidably tired. The constant demands on a parent are unrelenting. And yet, the more I examine my days, the more I see how very many opportunities there are for me to choose the pace I’m running. I choose whether or not to mop the floor, to answer the phone, to say “yes” to host the thing, or join the committee. I choose whether to scramble or to let the toys remain in disarray when leaving the house in the morning. I choose to make the sauce from scratch, or find a jar with decent ingredients. I choose to promise homemade cupcakes for the preschool class. I choose to set the pace on responding to texts and emails. The work is never done, and so each time I stop to read a book with my child, or build the Legos, or sit still while a couple children nap, is simply a choice. Though there is much out of my control, I am responsible for the pace I run.

 

There is much to make us tired, but I believe we find hope, and the strength to keep taking the next step when we choose to keep pace with the Shepherd – to be led in his grace and wisdom. Perhaps the goal is no longer to live in a carefree sprint until we wear out and need to be carried. Perhaps the goal is simply to keep pace with the Shepherd. We look for where He’s moving, and allow ourselves to be interrupted. And our confidence, our hope, as we run, must be in His infinite wisdom and absolute goodness.

 

If God leads at a pace that feels too fast, we must hope in his provision of strength in the midst, and of rest in the miles ahead. If He leads us at a pace that feels too slow, we must trust that the slow miles are a gift to recover and prepare for the hills ahead that we cannot see.

 

In these days with tiny ones, I am keenly aware of the Biblical charge to run our race to win (1 Cor 9:24). I often wonder if that’s what I’m doing when I feel completely emptied out at the end of the day, as if life is made up of a few tens of thousands of sprints. But it doesn’t feel so.

 

My children can sprint in reckless abandon, if they choose. And they go straight from running, spinning, wrestling craziness to snoring in about 8 seconds. By grace, their bodies and souls recover quickly, and by grace, they have their parents to help when their joyful unrestraint leaves them exhausted.

 

But for me, running a day at sprinting pace sometimes feels in vain. It feels like I have something to prove. It feels like I get ahead of the Shepherd and look around and wonder where He is. I am beginning to find freedom in running my days more like a small part of a long, long race.

 

I sometimes flip-flop between sprinting and feeling like I deserve to be carried. I feel a pressure that if wear out, than everything will crumble. So I react with a creeping sense of entitlement that says…. I deserve a break, deserve another coffee, deserve a night out, deserve a Netflix binge, deserve for my children to leave me alone while I finish my quiet time.

 

Hope is not found in grasping for these things to numb us or treat us or make up for a lack. Hope is not found in running every day at a sprint pace. I believe hope is found in keeping pace with the Shepherd. I try to create quiet moments to listen to His voice. I make space for gratitude in the real life moments. I look for the things that make my spirit come alive, even if they are not on my To Do list. I look for opportunities to connect with my children, and sometimes choose to walk away from unfinished work. I try to give myself permission to take two hours to fold the laundry with my preschoolers, instead of trying to get them to leave me alone so I can do it in twenty minutes.

 

And I try to remember to choose rest…

 

Not as a reaction to exhaustion because I sprinted too hard, but as an intentional part of keeping pace with the Shepherd. I can take the “flat road” to grab a quick nap, a babysitter, 10 extra minutes before my children rise in the morning – as a crucial part of the race. Settling my pace to recover and prepare for the hills ahead is not giving up or failing; it’s a part of the plan.

 

In physical races that I have run, I have often regretted not collapsing across the finish line, having given it all. I’ve never had the faith in my body and strength to persevere at top speed. I have always been afraid of burning out before the finish line. So I reserve and reserve and reserve.

 

Those who win…they leave everything on the course. That is how I want to finish my life on earth.

 

But in the race of our lives, running hard after God, we ought not to collapse across the finish line at the end of each day. We can trust our “pacer,” our Shepherd, to lead us through hard miles, and easy ones, fast minutes, hours, days, years…and slow ones.

 

As we keep pace with God, our Shepherd, we can trust that he will lead us well, given all our human and earthly limitations. And as we keep pace with Him, he will lead us to collapse across the finish line at the end of our earthly lives, to be greeted with “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

 

Rest was God’s idea, as were our fleshy bodies and the cycle of night and day. It was God’s idea that we could not maintain a sprinting pace for all of our days. It was God’s idea that we would have to keep our eyes fixed on Him to know our pace, despite days when fog settles in around us and clouds our vision. It was God’s idea that we would be drawn into deep intimacy with him, and dependence on him, in days with young children.

 

To run my best race, I must let the wind carry me when it is at my back. I must let a slight downhill in the course – the easier days – gently elevate my pace. The significant declines, when things feel swift and easy, I might be inclined towards self-sufficiency. But these require caution, remembering my frailty and my need for God’s leadership. And when I reach a hill to climb – the hard times – I must tune in, fix my gaze, shorten and quicken my steps, and run with exceptional hope that I will come up and over in the strength of my God.

 

We mamas must resist the pressure to sprint.

 

Perhaps when I was young, I could stay up all night, or book my schedule every night, or say “yes” to all the things. When I overdid it, I would be scooped up, carried close to God’s chest (i.e. and sleep until noon on a Saturday). But now, I must keep pace, on my own feet, as God gently leads me with my little flock.

 

When He quickens his pace, we can as well, in faith. Our Shepherd knows our needs, our strength and limitations. We need not fear that we will become exhausted. Our God can breathe new breath into our lungs, and soften our pounding hearts. He can lift us up to our feet when we fall, and his touch infuses us with new strength. But we are not carried as we once were…we are gently led.

We run hard in response to the love of the One who gave it all for us. But sometimes the seasons shift and, when winter comes, we are running our race with some bruises and stress fractures. Children are a tremendous blessing, and a constant source of laughter and profound joy. But sometimes days with little ones can grow dark and wintry. While we once ran with the winds at our back, making us feel like our feet had wings, we now must tuck our chin and run straight into the wind, face stung by the blustery air.

And in this state, the goal is not record-breaking pace. The goal is to Just. Keep. Going. When we are weary, we just keep making the choice to take the next step…and the next…and the next. We squint to look through the wind and fog to our Shepherd, always just ahead.

 

If we find we have run ahead of our Shepherd, we must slow our pace and fall behind His leadership. If we find we can’t make our feet to move, we must invite His healing touch to restore us.

Joy comes in staying the course. Joy comes in running in step with the Shepherd. And when we run in step with the Shepherd, we can know confidently that we are set to win.

 

 

Biblical references: Isaiah 40: 28-31, Luke 5: 16, Psalm 127: 2, 1 Corinthians 9: 24

 

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)