“For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on, and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in.” Isaiah 28:20
I have so many things that vie for my attention day in and day out and trying to figure out which ones are truly worthy of my time is a hard thing to do. There are so many opportunities that come around that look great and sound fun, but is it something that I should do? When I look at my calendar square, is there enough room left to fit it in? Not usually.
When we as mothers overbook ourselves we aren’t just cheating ourselves, we’re cheating everyone else around us too. When we’re overbooked, we get stressed far too easily, which we then take out on our kids, husbands and even our friends. As Christian mothers it becomes so hard to turn someone away when they ask something of us because, well, “it’s the Christian thing to do to help your neighbor”. We look to the Proverbs 31 woman and all the things that she did and think, “that’s how I’m supposed to be”. But the truth about that woman that we fail to see is that while she was getting all those things done, she wasn’t doing them all at the same time!
God told me yesterday, “You can do all things through Christ who gives you strength. But you DON’T have to do all things for all people all the time! It’s OK to just say ‘No’.”
Eve was created at the end of the sixth day of creation. Do you know what God had her do first? Rest. The seventh day of creation was the Sabbath day of rest. If that doesn’t show you how important rest is to God I don’t know what will!
As moms we rush around like chickens with our heads cut off, slurping down buckets of coffee to keep us going, and all we want is a NAP! But instead we chug back another café mocha espresso and clean the entire house instead, because you know, what if someone comes over and sees that my house isn’t perfect! Oh no! Trust me, I’m just as guilty as the rest of you, well, at least I was anyway. But now there’s a reason why I write a weekly article called, “Not the Perfect Mom”! It’s because I’ve discovered that perfection is an absolutely unattainable goal. And while it’s not like I don’t still strive for it, because oh how I do! But I don’t let my lack of perfection drag me down in my opinion of myself anymore.
OK, so if you were to drive past my house right now, you’d see PLENTY of weeds in my flower beds… and no flowers for that matter. I am NOT a gardener. But if you were to come into my amazingly messy house, you would be loved and fed and given a cold drink (or hot if you preferred).
I have spent wasted so much of my life worrying about what other people thought of me and trying to live up to the standards that I thought other people had for me and you know where it’s gotten me? NOWHERE! It made me horribly frustrated and sad because I couldn’t EVER do it no matter how hard I tried. The standards we hold ourselves to are absolutely ridiculous. We run ourselves ragged filling our schedules with all kinds of activities to keep us busy so that we can avoid the fact that we’re not perfect. We commit to things just because it will make someone else happy, and sometimes that’s OK. But sometimes it’s really not. Sometimes too much is just that, too much.
As women we wear a million and one hats, but at some point we collect so many hats that most of the hats go without a head more often than not. If you’re head’s not in the hat, is it a hat you really should be wearing? Or, is it perhaps, a hat that was made for someone else to wear and by you keeping it you’re denying their blessing of wearing the hat that was made for them.
It’s OK to say ‘No”. You don’t have to do all things, for all people, all the time.
Most days many of your goals for the day won’t be met, and you know what? That’s OK too. Give yourself permission to be HUMAN. Give yourself permission to skip the coffee and take the nap so that you can wake up RESTED enough to be a fun mom again.
Tamar Knochel 