I remember when my daughter was in kindergarten. For such little squirts, they sure do have a lot for parents to keep up with! All good, fun things of course, but here was me. Scatterbrained, forgetful, disorganized. I continually felt I was catching up with late news, signing up late for events, not turning in due papers. What was WRONG with me? And then the fear of what the other moms who have it together “must” be thinking. My spirit weighed heavy with: Am I cut out for this? What’s my deal?? Do I even have a deal? Where the heck are my keys?
Fast-forward two years. Now I’m homeschooling. The same exact questions don’t plague my thoughts, but the same idea does. See, generally, when a mom homeschools, now SHE is sole educator for her children. So instead of “Am I turning in enough papers” and “Am I present enough in the classroom”, now I’m thinking “Am I doing enough with my kids? Am I doing too much? Should I work closer? Should I give more independence?” Are we all seeing the same theme here? Whether you send your kids to school or educate them at home or even if they’re grown and out of the house or just wee babes, when you boil down the jello, many of us have the same question: “Am I enough?”
Moms, our big day–Mother’s Day–is coming up and I’m going to call us out on something. We are downright rough on ourselves, aren’t we? We want to do what’s best in each area of parenting. We want to do things right by our kids, but we don’t give ourselves much of a learning curve. We hope & pray to fit it all in, to be all we want to be, to fulfill the expectations, and when we mess up or “fail”, we can spend the rest of the day or even the week asking ourselves the same kinds of questions:
- I thought I was over this. Why did I do it again?
- I read that article and tried the advice. Why isn’t it working?
- I can’t believe I forgot the open house. Am I the only one who forgets?
- I yelled at my daughter. Will she be talking about me to her therapist someday? (I’ve actually ask myself this one!)
The world says there’s ALWAYS more to be done, to purchase, to participate in, to get involved with, to achieve, gain, have for yourself, have for your family. It’s the American dream, right? But notice that the world is also telling moms that there is always more for us to BE.
By the world’s standard, being who God made you to be is simply not enough. You must always be more & better. You must always do more and until you recognize that the world’s message is wrong, you’ll never feel like you’re enough.
We all too often accept the world’s standard as a bar we need to reach. Problem is, the bar is always just a bit farther out of reach. So we reach again. We compare our lives to others and never quite feel we’ve “gotten there”. So we pursue more vigorously than we ever have, striving nobly for the betterment of ourselves and our family, struggling to realize there is no finish line in this race to perfection.
Augh! Talk about exhausting! I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to take that backpack off! I’m ready for the GOOD NEWS! Who’s ready for some good news? I won’t even call it a secret, because no news this good should EVER be kept a secret! Here it is:
MOM, YOU ARE ENOUGH!
That’s the good news. It has taken me YEARS to realize that I am created unique (quirks and all), that I’m created with a purpose, and that I do not have it all together and never will. All of us moms (as well as our daughters) have our own sets of personal struggles and for some reason, we isolate ourselves as the only ones who aren’t “enough”! But we are, we so are. We are all enough because Jesus was enough for us. And if you believe that like I do, you can lay that terrible burden down!
More good news: Nobody who understands grace and loves you expects you to have it all together! I used to think I had to be the perfect mom, and when I wasn’t I got so down on myself. But our family has gotten to a beautiful place where we freely forgive and accept one another when we mess up. It’s called grace! Grace for others when they mess up, grace for yourself when you mess up. And the faster you accept it, the better, my lovely friends!
Now, I won’t pretend like there aren’t areas I want to improve. Oh, there are, especially in the areas that affect others so directly. But we chip away at those, God works on those, and we inch along, practicing grace as we go.
More AMAZING news: This blew my mind….your daughter, your family NEEDS you to be imperfect, to be “enough” in your imperfection, and to live under grace. This world isn’t just telling YOU this lie, its blasting your family with it from the four corners of the earth. Imagine this: INSTEAD of your family (especially your daughter) seeing you struggle to be more, do more and get more, that instead they see a woman who has accepted her design and is secure in being “enough”. How powerfully that will speak to them! Think of the generations you could influence by simply being “enough”. They don’t need a perfect mom. They need a mom who is enough. Will you show them, not just in words, but in your LIFE that “enough” is a freeing and beautiful place to live? Will you give them permission to be “enough” in their lives by how you live from this moment on? Will you show your daughter how to be a woman who is enough? And, very importantly, will you free yourself from the burden this Mother’s Day?
I pray this Mother’s Day is the day you lay the burden down. It’s time you give yourself permission to be enough. Generations will thank you.
