The Weight of it All

As we prepare for sweet Marlie I have had a lot on my mind. Like how can I seriously at this point in pregnancy title a blog "Weight" and not laugh out loud? And then there are other more important things like Will my girls get all they need from me?  How in the world are there enough hours in the day to make sure they know how very much I love them? I must pour everything I have into them, Mike and my work.  And then I get tired.  This whole work-life balance thing is really a joke.  I have come to the conclusion that there is really no such thing and I am not going to continue to try to "balance".  I am just going to give it all I have and pray every chance I get that no one is getting short changed.  I pray more than anything that my girls and my husband and my colleagues look at me and know I am giving them every ounce of me and that my greatest hope is that they look at me and see the love of Christ.  I hope they see that I am not perfect.  I hope they see that I am sometimes crazy.  And I hope they see just how unbalanced I truly am.  Because then they will see that my Father loves me that way too.  Just as I will love them no matter where the are, no matter who they are.  There are days that are complete blurs between school drop off, work, school pick up, dinner, bath, bedtime, adult time and finally bed where I lay and think of all the things that didn't get done.  But in all of those blurry days there are precious moments that only a mother, wife and professional gets to experience.  I won't trade those moments for sanity.  I recently read an article from another mom and she so beautifully articulated what I need to hear. "The weight of perfectly remembering every detail for each of my kids, as well as purposefully pouring life into their little souls, is more than I can bear. But there is sweet relief when I confess my own idolatry and rest in Jesus’ promise that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. No matter how hard I work at it, I won’t get it all right all the time. But God gives just as much grace when I stand before my kids as he does when I kneel at the foot of the cross. My desire to be a good mother will never go away and I will always continue to work hard at it, but the weight to do it perfectly and completely will only be eased as I look to my own perfect Father and trust the gospel of his grace for me and my family. And some days that might just mean we’re having frozen pizza for dinner again."  I had an epiphany.  He never intended for me "to have it all", He wants me to surrender it all.  And I will.   And just like that He shows us up and calms the storm.  I can do this, I will do this and He will bless me.