Today’s post is excerpted from Mombarded: When Motherhood Bombards Your Heart, Mind, and Life: a devotional journey that gives you 52 devotionals (and space to journal) to encourage and challenge you to help you continually grow as a mom…through the mombardment of responsibilities, emotions, pressures, frustrations, and adventures. Preorder today and receive free shipping.
We can’t do it all.
Our children can’t do it all.
We’re limited.
And you know what? I’m glad! We put enough pressure on ourselves. We fill every nook and cranny of time. We push the limits. Which assumes there are limits.
God didn’t create us to do it all. I don’t even know what “doing it all” entails. Do you? We each have assumptions of what it might entail, but isn’t it just that: our own assumptions? We all know we can’t actually do it all, but we want to be able to do the all that we think is most important.
We really can’t even do that. Even for those moms who are pretty laid back and take things as they come, let go of things easily, and find contentment in everyday reality, there are times when they go to bed with something undone they would have preferred to have done. They have moments of “I probably should have” or “I probably shouldn’t have.” They might be less wracked with guilt than other moms, but limits press in on them just the same.
Then there are the moms who try to live nearly every detail of their lives within limits. They usually set most of those limits by themselves, and if they’re really honest, many of the limits are unrealistic. Instead of looking at the realistic possibilities, they focus on dreams and ideals. They often underestimate the time, money, or organization something is going to take, so they end up feeling pressed for time, money, or organization. Sometimes they rely on organization too heavily, so that if you were to pull one thing out of place, the whole day might cave in…along with the family’s sanity.
But most of us fall somewhere in between. We might teeter toward one end of the spectrum or the other, but we have moments of needing to define and live by limits and moments of tossing them aside to be spontaneous. We can’t live with either extreme, because limits exist, and we are indeed limited. Once we recognize that, life gets (a little) easier.
God puts limits in our lives, not to restrain us as much as to give us boundaries to fully enjoy the freedom of the lives He has given us. Limits give us the boundaries to know that we can step on every single inch of ground within the limits and savor, explore, claim, nourish, and enjoy. There will be enough challenges within those limits. We don’t need to constantly run to the fence and climb it to long and reach for what is on the other side. When we do, we miss out on what’s on our side.
Yes, time, energy, relationships, opportunities, and abilities are all limited. But the possibilities within those limits contain way more opportunities than we’re taking. Focus. Not for busyness sake but for intentional attention’s sake.
What really needs your attention today?
