Striving

                                  Cease striving and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10)
     
So often we beat ourselves up and exhaust ourselves in mental barrages or faulty facts that can leave us defeated and down. We also can physically exhaust ourselves by the amount of tasks we seek to complete in one day. Which, is most of the time humanely impossible. No matter whether we work, stay home, are in school, or wherever we find ourselves we have busy schedules. We must ask ourselves am I truly living or striving to do or be more?

Striving is that endless feeling of never being good enough. Never getting it right. Always comparing and feeling a little less. Perhaps it is your striving that has anchored your plan to be the best wife, mother, daughter, and friend you could possibly be. You can no longer embrace your daily tasks, you simply complete them to move to the next one. Hoping all of the time that you will somehow be enough for someone, ultimately it is seeking to find our worth in the wrong places.

Or, maybe it is the striving to accumulate more stuff. Which is ironic, as mothers who have to clean it and put it away. However, in order to be enough we must have enough, right? Friends, money, clothes, etc. These are not bad in and of themselves, but when we place our confidence in them alone, they always come up empty. The irony in striving is not that we ever set out to do it. It always finds us. We mean well.

Circumstances. We are changers of them. We can work hard to try to prevent sadness, heartache, or difficulty for ourselves and those we love. Why would we want our kids to experience pain? No one desires to go through trials. But, what we often find in striving to hold our world together and make sure that all of the puzzle pieces fit together....we become exhausted. Our good intentions have dealt us a hand that we are not fit to hold. We are not the creator of our universe and we cannot keep up with keeping up for very long. We either become absorbed in running from one daunting task to another while believing we are doing a good thing or, we immerse ourselves underneath the blanket of defeat feeling helpless because our circumstances are no longer in our control.

 But, what if we actually chose to be who we are and not someone we want to be? To live our lives in whatever facet that lies before us and just live them well. To confidently take each day one step at a time. To acknowledge that God is in control and his purposes far outweigh any false reality I can strive to keep up. The trials are still there, laundry still has to be done, and everyone will still want dinner (every night!), but peace will come through our release of our world and the tight grip that we have on it.

So this is for you, tired momma. Exhausted teenager. Searching young adult. You are enough. You do not have to do more, be more, or have more. You can have confidence and peace in knowing that God sees you. He hears you and he cares. He is your strength. Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest (Mathew 11:28 NIV).