Dear Busy Mama,
I see you, chasing seconds…Moments where you can sneak away, take a walk or get coffee with kids resting safely (and quietly) in their carseats.
I see how even brainless acts of folding laundry have become a sanctuary for your soul…
Not because you want to do “one more load”, but because the laundry room is safe, quiet, it’s a non-combative refuge that doesn’t fight back.
And let’s face it, the quiet “humm humm” of a washer, is far better than the rage of a toddler or any sideways comments from a budding teenager.
Closed quarters helps you think straight, iron your thoughts in the same way the hot iron presses down on your husband’s work shirt, agan.
Oh Mama, how I feel the heaviness in your body, thoughts, mind, emotions.
Every fiber of your being, as the days go on, can feel just like one more needle compressed on the camels back.
“The days are long, the years short”, they say.
However, you only pray moments pass quickly. At the same time you long to capture every infants smile, every funny phrase, every first step, first tooth…the fully belly laughter of your children.
His yoke is easy, His burden light, they tell you.
Yet, opening your Bible, dropping to your knees just seems like “one more thing to do” with a screaming toddler, homework and school projects, and a shower you’ve needed for days.
Yet, you dream…
Dream of just a second without lists wrecking your ability to drag yourself from the pressures of the day.
You dream of lightness and breathe, a mind free from the tangled web of “do’s and don’t’s”, “need-too’s and have too’s”.
And you know your supposed to find joy in the small, cling to the simple, appreciate this season…but the weight of it all, sometimes just makes you kind of wonder, how?
I see your questions around money. Will you ever have enough? Will you ever be enough? And I wonder if the two are intertwined, connected?
If the need for things isn’t just about “things” but a heart-cry for something more, a need for a filling inside of something deeper, something true?
We weren’t meant to carry these burdens alone. Yet, we do. Why?
Teachers conferences, recitals, performances, select sports…
The question lingers….Will they be enough?
Will they overcome the challenges you experienced at their age? Will they leap the gap you haven’t filled by the time, money and energy you spend to make them something more…
Will you stand and keep emptily searching for their worth in the world….Instead of kneel humbly to Him …Letting Him define who they are?
And then, there is the diagnosis; the people saying your kids need more or are lacking.
Diagnosis that seem to show themselves when you are least expecting, unwanting of more advice that comes from a stale source, apart from the people who know them….I mean, really know your kids.
They tell you your kids aren’t enough, you aren’t enough. They label your child with everything we never wanted or dreamed about when they were little.
I mean, we didn’t sign up for labels when we carried like a tender kangaroo, our babies around as 
infants.
And is it really a suprise, we walk farther, try harder, yet can feel heavier and more weighted the more information we learn, the more “science” informs us, the more we hear “experts” label our children?
What they don’t know is, instead of us hearing, “red die is bad for you”, we panick and read labels, lather essential oils and vow to somehow be an all-knowing, all-seeing God of our environments…
If we are honest, I wonder if we think…If they stumble somewhere along the way….
Maybe we have failed.
Why do we carry around such a burden? Such a lie? When did we forget, we are not God? It’s alright if we aren’t perfect.
His yoke is easy. His burden is light, they tell us.
I see you stopping to scroll Facebook or Instagram. The quiet yearning or longing for a life well-edited, just like the photos you look at, daily.
Yet, what if the capturing of a heart has nothing to do with the click of a phone or a camera?
What if the capturing of tiny hearts is found in those moments most unglamorous; those UNphoto worthy moments incapable of being edited or perfected?
And what if the imperfect…those messy and slightly tottered and tattered moments…are actually the magic we have been missing, the beautiful we have been seeking all along?
What if losing ourselves in images only taints our own abilities to see people as God sees them, beautiful, broken…messy.
And what if one dimentional snapshots actually hinder us from really accepting and lovng our children, husbands and families well?
Mama, dear, sweet, desperate mama….I see you.
I see you when you ache with questions. When the tomorrows of your story try to twist and douse you with guilt and shame, when you lay your head on the pillow at night where nobody sees…
And tears fall from your face.
Still, I get the downward spiral, the exhausting thoughts when “one bad day” somehow blows itself into the “end of the world”?
We let thoughts run like rabbits, why? Racing down some alley and before we can catch them, they are tangled in a thicket of thorns?
Somehow we forget what’s important, valuable….simple?
When did we leave the paved perfect days of our youth? Without even expecting, our hearts got lost in the eyes of our children, got raveled into wonder and magic and beauty of the little hands and feet or our grown, adult children.
Captivated by their laughter. Their hugs somehow melt us into a non-existent reflection of a God above.
What people don’t know is our child’s joy drips like honey into our hearts and has now forever changed us.
Little lives, little voices, little moments quietly unseen by others, have re-made us.
I know, you can’t afford new eyelashes, a new outfit or even a new toothbrush because you are busy putting shoes on feet, hands in warm coats, and hugs around needy little hearts looking to you to guide them…
But thankfully, there is someone who promises to care for us as we spend our days caring for others.
There is One who waits for us to drop our burdens, lay our problems, remove our rabbit thoughts. His counsel is perfect, free. His gift to us is always peace.
His yoke is easy. His burden light.
He clothes the glorious lily. He will cloth us and our children well too, if we let Him.
You may be a single mom, a working parent, a homeschool mama who spends herself every second, not only raising but educating her children.
And with every cord of the heart tightened, every pressure from society to pay and drive your child to paino lessons, dance lessons, gymnastics and soccer…
God says they are….YOU are enough, even without “extra curriculars”.
Mama, you are worthy. Your children are worthy too. Just because they are His.
Isn’t belonging just as much as more important than accomplishing?
And when did we race from farm life and quiet home-made breakfasts, getting eggs from the barn and strolling with our parents to school in the morning…
To this wild, unsettled life racing from school bus, to activities, to fast food, to more rehearsals? A life 
that never slows, pays us back, or stops long enough to really look into the eyes of those we love.
Friends, in case you didn’t know….There is no medal for our over-achievement.
There is no earthly or even heavenly praise for doing more, striving more, teaching more….or being “perfect”.
Your worth and your children’s worth isn’t in the happening, but in the ability for us and our kids to quiet our souls and really be present…tuning hearts to listen to the Shepherd who made us.
And what if our power isn’t in our clean houses, our well-kept children, or even in the great accomplished a promising future may hold….
What if our greatest work as a parent is the ability to nurture our childrens souls well, helping them to know, even now, they are “enough”? The Creator who made them already loves them.
And no, that doesn’t mean squandering a life…
But it does mean walking towards the light, towards a life that’s wide eyed and awakened. It means listening within before stepping into a world that aches for spotlights in the darkness.
It means raising our children to not just keep taking and obsorbing, receiving and achieving…
But teaching them who they are, so they can recognize their gifts and use then in society with inspiration, creativity and dignity.
What if we raised children for less worldly praise or money and instead taught them to see the hurting, help the broken, reach to something other than their phone or the latest computer game for their identity?
Wouldn’t we have suceeded then?
His yoke is easy. His burden is light. So what if we led by example? Turned off our phones, even now after reading this…
And sat in the presence of The One who made us?
What if we let Him have our doubts, squash our fears, rid us of worry, so we could stand up and be the brave, strong mama’s He has already made us?
His grace is sufficient, Mama.
So let’s remember…He is the Way Maker, our child’s Masterful designer. He is the perfect parent we seek when our head hits the pillow at night.
He knows the way. He has the answers. There is grace for our children. And there is even grace for us.
We don’t have to be enough.
We can just be; simply, imperfectly, transparently….One busy mama.
Broken, needy and ok….maybe a little tired at the end of the day, too….
Still, a parent who loves her children. One who can rest and knows, she is doing the best she can.
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