There was a season I didn't count the stars at night, or watch the trees blow outside the window. I didn't used to pay attention to the incredible colors of a sunset or glowing moonlight. I was much too busy and exhausted for that...until one day I had to.
After weeks of turmoil spinning in the depth of my soul, all day, every day, I had to take a step outside just to breath.
As a Mom of young ones at home, life began to get stressful. I found myself taking extended potty breaks to my tiny sanctuary for 2 minutes of nothingness, 5 extra minutes walking to the mailbox, strolling to the grocery check out line.
Day after day, it was a hustle and a hoot to live life in my skin. I volunteered, I served, I lunched, I exercised, I did laundry, shopping, cooking, cleaning, writing, cuddling, settled arguments and tantrums, and Bible Study, all with a proverbs 31 smile on my face, day after day, never with permission to take a break.
The flow was constant and chaotic if I am honest. And yet I absolutely loved the life I imagined I was living. The laughs, tickles, snuggles, cute outfits, pudgy little feet and swings at the park! I loved the little sandwich shapes and notes in the lunch boxes.
Being a Mom was the best job and I loved every moment of it...I just wished it wasn't so demanding, exhausting and depleting. It made being a patience and perfect
Mom so hard. If only I knew then what I knew now...
One day my heart leaped so far out of my chest a shock wave pinged down my left arm. The deeper breath I drew, the deeper the pain. I couldn't breath. I was suffocating. There were warning signs but as true to my courageous (and prideful) self, I kept going.
I was a do-gooder, focused intensely on being a perfect Christian Mom, Wife, Friend, Neighbor with intentions God would be pleased and represented well as I lived my life serving sacrificially, representing what a Christian Woman, especially as a leader in the church, looked like only to learn the only one who can represent God, is God Himself. We are simply His instruments, His vessels of Grace and Love, that through our LOVE, others would see HIS LOVE!
I had to live the expectations of all the Proverb 31 things...anxious for nothing and courageous and excellent about everything else that her children would rise up and call her blessed. These whispered lies- striving for perfection in every area of my life- were no different than the craftiness of the enemy when he spoke to Even in the garden. The whispers of twisted truths of how to glorify God in my little address on this planet. Wrong. Satan is the father of lies.
Our God paid it all so that the captives would be set free in His Name. I didn't see it when I was in the midst of it. I had lost my self and lost my worship. I felt like a powered robot, scheduled to do all the things everyone else needed me to do, yet so honored to serve God and my family.
I could no longer be a slave to perfection or fear. A new journey began that season, learning how to strive for love and not perfection. I learned the preciousness of experiences with God instead of the suffocating expectations of the enemy.
Grace became the new expectation, a healing balm to a weary and wrecked soul. I learned to seek and plan out quiet moments in the day to exhale the toxins built up within my heart and soul. I learned to have Grace. I learned how to find my value in His heart and not in my doings. It took surrender, discipline and accountability. It took desperation for peace and purpose in The Plan I believed in my spirit God had for me, and for you.
God did not create us for a robotic life of busyness and living life on auto-pilot, constantly hustling to achieve the next expectation in the name of proving worthiness, or the evidence of what a Christian Woman should live and look like.
The evidence is Jesus, and we are His vessels of Love here on this Earth, that all people in all nations will know the Grace of God…not the judgements of God.
Friend, if you have found yourself struggling to keep it all together, let me give you the permission you absolutely don’t need from anyone but you think you do…BE FREE in the arms of Grace!!! Surrender your heart to His and guard it in your day. Look at the stars, smell the flowers, dance, read, laugh, serve and lead...FOR HIM!!! Not for anyone else!
Freely serve, give, love, worship, laugh, cry. Be the wonderful created one He created you to be and steward well the gifts (the babies and the spiritual ones) along with the resources He has given you! He’s got you! Surrender, ask, seek and TRUST Him with your breaths.
The HEART of God wants yours!
You are loved, seen and heard every day, right where you are!
You were made for worship!
“And from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” 1 John 1:16
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9
