Self-care and Selfishness

A friend recently asked our moms' group if any other mothers struggled to take time for themselves. Quite a few other moms chimed in about how challenging it is to leave the kiddos and go do something either with friends or alone. While there are practical challenges to overcome, they were talking about guilt, not practical challenges. I have been thinking about this for a while now.

I feel Christians live this strange dichotomy. We are told to be humble servants, to put God first, others second, and ourselves last. We are sinners, destined for Hell, with hearts "deceitfully wicked." And yet, somehow we are the beloved of King Jesus, heirs of Heaven. In fact, when Jesus is asked what the two most important commandments are, he says:

“‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40 NLT)

The question that keeps popping into my head is: what would it look like if I loved my neighbor the way I loved myself? How do I love myself? Am I constantly critiquing myself, judging my actions as unworthy? Do I think beautiful or merciful thoughts toward myself?

If your friend came to you and said that she was tired, overwhelmed, needed a break from life, would you encourage and help her to take one? Would you want her to feel guilty the whole time? Then why do we do this to ourselves? Have we become so terrified of pride and selfishness that we can't even rest as God commanded us to do?

It is true that we are sinful. It is true that we sometimes need to be reminded of our sin and called out on our rebellion. It is true that without God, we are nothing. All our righteousness is as filthy rags.

It is also true that God sent His son to wipe that slate clean. It is true that once we accept the gift of salvation, we are washed white. We are children of light.

Here's the thing: I believe that we can love God first, others second, and still make time for ourselves. Did you hear that? You can have time to yourself, guilt-free. God loves us outrageously. He desires that we obey Him because He longs to lead us into the freedom that He has for us. He calls us His children. Sometimes He just wants us to play, to enjoy life, to be refreshed. Sometimes that is His will for us. When Jesus was in the craziest times of His ministry, he sneaked out to the wilderness to spend time in quiet prayer. He also spent time alone with His best friends. He gave us the ultimate example of how to serve the world, and it included relationship and rest.

So don't stop it. Don't fight the need for rest and relationship. Don't buy into the lie that you don't deserve it. Don't buy into the lie that you are being selfish. Don't buy into the lie that the world will fall apart without you for a few hours or days (hello, pride!). Don't buy into the great American lie that you are just too busy.

Let God speak to you through Scripture and quiet. Let God refresh you through friends and the activities you love. Let God fill you with love and grace and mercy so that you can pour those blessings out on others. 

Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Embrace the rest. Embrace the fun. Embrace the times of quiet and the times of laughter. You will be a better wife/mother/person for it.

If you are feeling especially brave, ask God to show you how you truly see yourself. I did that once and it changed my life completely. That is a story for another day!

Where am I?

Sometimes the past comes back to haunt you, sometimes it comes back to encourage you, and sometimes it comes back and simply makes you ponder where you are and where you are going.

Four years ago this month, I met my husband. I was single, worked successfully as a paralegal, owned my own home, and spent countless hours with friends in church ministry. I was honestly quite happy and content with my life. Four short-long years later, I am a happily married, stay-at-home mom of two little ones, 5,000 miles from my old home, who can barely manage to get to the grocery store once a week. Four years is not very long, but it feels like a lifetime for me right now.

When my husband met me, I had worked unrelentingly to overcome past hurts and bad habits, to learn and believe the truth instead of lies, to follow God wherever He would lead me. I felt confident in who I was and what I was doing. These days, I feel much less confident in myself. I wonder if I am mothering my children as well as I should. I wonder if I am letting my motherhood duties distract me too much from nurturing my marriage. I wonder if I am letting it all distract me too much from God.

The gifts that I identified in myself in my single days are still there, but I have struggled to know how to express them. The desires of my heart to serve God and to spread my passion for prayer are still there, but I have no idea how to have them met. My need for quiet times and creativity is still there, but often it is pushed aside to care for others. I frequently feel confused or overwhelmed or simply tired as I attempt to adjust to an ever-changing "normal."

My mom assures me that this is just a season in my life, that I will once again have time for myself and for other things. I know that my children will not be tiny attention hogs forever. I know that being a mom and living out the calling that God has placed on my life for right now IS serving Him. I know that my daily life is no less holy as I change diapers than when I was praying on prayer teams regularly. I know that. I believe that.

And yet.

I find I struggle with doubts now that I thought were vanquished. I find I struggle with feeling disconnected with God's plan in the world. I find I struggle with feeling like my children take too much energy and attention and I just don't have it to give to them.

We talk a lot about mountain tops and valleys in our spiritual journeys. I think I am in a plain. A flat, even, plain. Nothing terrible. Nothing extraordinary. Just a lot of ordinary struggles on ordinary days. I don't know how to live on the plain, honestly. I have lived the mountain top and thrilled with the ecstasy. I have lived the valley and found God's comfort in the agony. What do I do with the ordinary? What does it look like to walk with God on the flat plain and not let my faith fade?

That is where I am right now. I love God. I love my husband and my children deeply. I love my life, actually. I just don't feel adequate to live it sometimes.

Changing

Once upon a time there was a girl who was afraid of change. It terrified her. Sickened her. She would lay in her bed at night, crying herself to sleep and pleading with God, "Why can't things just stay the same?!"

Then God said: Come. Take my hand. Walk with me. Trust me to sustain you, every day, no matter what comes.

The girl shrank back. She said: How do I know that things will be better? What if they are worse? What if bad things happen? What if I can't handle it? What if I am hurt?

But God waited, patiently repeating: Come. Take my hand. Walk with me. Trust me to sustain you, every day, no matter what comes.

Slowly, the girl began to stretch her hand out to God. She hesitated. She held back. She struggled to admit anything that might bring change to her life.

But changes come to everyone, and they came to her.

As her fingers slowly found God's, as she falteringly stood to her feet and attempted to walk with Him, changes came.

Changes in her. She began to trust God. She began to grow. She began to see God's faithfulness every day and to trust that He would be as faithful tomorrow. She began to walk with Him.

One day, she saw a change approaching and it excited her. The excitement took her breath away. Had she come this far? Did she trust God so deeply that a change could bring her happiness? The girl who was afraid of change?

God said: Now. Now I can give you what I had planned for you. Now you are ready to walk the path I laid out for you before you were even born.

The changes came faster than she could have ever imagined. Marriage, moving, babies, family tragedies. A husband whose job brought with it the question every day of what change was coming next. Children who never stop growing, who never slow down.

She said: You have changed me, God. You have sustained me. You have been faithful to me all the days of my life. I will trust that you are the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

God said: I love you, my daughter. You are precious. You are mine. I will love you the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Come. Take my hand. Walk with me. Trust me to sustain you, every day, no matter what comes.

And so she did.

Am I Just a Mom?

This post is probably not about what you think. Since the concept of Republican Motherhood, Americans have loved to discuss the place and value of mothers (stay at home or not). Many eloquent words have been spoken already on that subject. This is about something different.

When you are a stay-at-home mom (I think this probably applies to working moms, too, but I have no experience there), it is easy to be constantly in "mom mode." Even when the babies are asleep, you are making lists, multitasking chores, worrying about something. Perhaps because it is a job that never sleeps, being a mom can easily be all-consuming.

Then the Internet is full of talk about mothers, from Mommy-wars to inspirational Pinterest quotes, from heart-warming commercials to Gwyneth Paltrow's comments on working moms. It's all there. A constant barrage of ideas on what motherhood is or isn't, should or shouldn't be. So now you have a job that never sleeps combined with an endless stream of input on whether or not you are doing well at that job and how you could be doing it better.

Do you find it exhausting? I do. And I am also in danger of thinking that I am just a mom, that being a mom is all I am and all I will ever be. Or--even more dangerous--that being a mom is the most important part of me. Have you seen a mother who gripped so tightly to her identity as a mother that she never seemed to let her children grow up? And when they finally did pull away, she had no idea what to do with herself?

I am a mom. Even when my children move out, I will still have been a mom. It is forever a piece of who I am. I am also a daughter, a sister, a wife, a friend. Or I could describe myself in other ways. I am a college graduate, a paralegal, a homemaker, a sewer, an avid reader, an Alaskan. All of these things say something about me, about my past, about my future even. Yet none of them say who I am.

Being a mom describes my relationship to other human beings, just like being a wife or a daughter does. These relationships are hugely important in my life. They have shaped and will continue to shape me as a person. Yet if I take one of those as my identity--as the description of who I am at the core--then I am bound to end up very broken. Because children grow up. Marriages end. Parents pass away. It is harsh, but it is the truth. If I am finding my sense of self in one of these relationships, there will come a day when I no longer know who I am. When I am lost. When the rug is pulled out from under me and I am left lying flat on my back with no idea how to get up.

My identity must be found outside of human relationships. My identity must be found in something that can never change. My identity has to be permanent, eternal.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28 ESV) 

"Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all." (Colossians 3:11 ESV) 

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:1-2 ESV)

If you know Jesus, then you are a child of God. That is the identity to which I cling. Everything else can and will change. I will not be a wife or a mother in Heaven. But I will still be a child of God. That is true. That is everlasting.

So on those days when you don't even want to be a mom and on the days when you are overwhelmingly grateful and humbled to be a mom, remember that you are always more than just a mom.

"For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light."(Ephesians 5:8 ESV)

Walk as a child of light, moms. Walk as a child of light, wives. Walk as a child of light, daughters. Walk as a child of light, women.

The Tyranny of the Undone

I recently posted a status on Facebook that elicited quite a bit of response:

"I am not naturally mother material. I rarely babysat because I never really liked little kids. I like alone time, quiet, order, making a plan and sticking to it, and giving people my undivided attention. ALL impossible with littles. So often I hear, 'This is just a season,' or 'This, too, shall pass.' There must be more than that. What does a mother like me need to *thrive*, not just survive?"

When David was deployed last year, I had to learn a lesson. I was moving more and more slowly as my pregnant belly grew and I felt further and further behind in keeping up with the house and all the things I wanted to be doing. It was overwhelming. Whenever Ashira would fall asleep, I would find myself in a frantic push to get stuff done. Or, nearly as often, I would sit on the couch and Pinterest away for two hours feeling guilty the entire time because I wasn't getting stuff done. Finally, I had to give myself permission to take care of myself in those times. Sometimes that meant ignoring the to-do list completely and enjoying some Pinterest or tv. Other times that meant at least giving myself a time limit (say, 20 minutes) to hurry through a few chores and THEN to ignore my to-do list completely and relax.

What's funny is that here I am, six months later, still struggling to learn this lesson. Only now I don't get chances at quiet very often. I have two kiddos whose sleeping schedules do not always coordinate. I have a husband who works very long days but only works 7 days out of 14, meaning that he is home half the evenings. His schedule is often shifting, so that disrupts the family routine. I literally spend 3-4 hours every day simply nursing a baby! And when the stars DO align and I get that rare moment of peace, I find myself once again under the tyranny of the undone. I find myself thinking things like:

I haven't scrubbed our shower in two months.

I need to make a menu plan for next week.

Will I ever have time to plant seeds?

That laundry has been in the washing machine for two days.

Thank goodness the ants are less active in the winter because I think there is a whole fruit snack convention happening under the couch.

I need to do the next day of my Bible study. What crazy person signs herself up to lead a study when she can't even scrub her shower regularly?

It is tyranny. And it robs me of my joy and peace. The list is unending and demanding and LOUD. Without the quiet moments, I lose perspective completely. I cannot find the patience I need or the humor in my child eating yet another book corner. I cannot show mercy to my husband when he makes a mistake. I cannot show love to him when I am asking him to make everything better because I sure can't. I cannot love my children when they begin to feel like nothing more than a hindrance to accomplishing my goals.

On one hand, I know the solution: to embrace the quiet and shut out the to-do list. I need to remind myself that God doesn't ask me to keep a spotless house, or to cook only veggie-ful, from-scratch meals every day, or to have all the closets full of neatly organized and labeled things.

On the other hand, the solution can feel impossibe, fuzzy, or simply lost. I value a clean home. I value good, healthy food. I value keeping our tiny house under some semblance of organization. But if I value those things too much--if I let them rule me--then the God of Peace cannot rule me. He cannot fill my heart with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Because I have filled it with other things.

Being a stay-at-home mother of two beautiful girls is the hardest thing I have ever done, by far. I have done hard things. I have wrestled with deep emotional wounds and healing. I have pondered the great things of God. I have maintained relationships and severed relationships. But this thing, this hard thing, is hard because it is there every single day. Like the steady drip, drip of water. It can either be Chinese water torture and kill me, or I can turn to God and let the water carve a spectacular canyon of His beautiful creation within me.

Lord, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

Single Ministry vs. Married Ministry

Being single and being married are totally different and both wonderful, but it took me quite a few years as a single lady to appreciate my singleness. The grass is always greener on the other side, right? Over time, however, God brought relationships into my life and taught me lessons that helped me to become truly joyful as a single person. A key part of the transition to joy for me was participating in various church ministries and activities.

Married people have this tendency to think of single people as "not busy." This couldn't be farther from the truth in my life. I was VERY busy as a single person. I was rarely ever home, always spending time with people in groups or just getting coffee or volunteering for something. "Ministry" as a single person was so easy! Excepting my work schedule, I could sign up for what I wanted, invest in the people I chose to invest in, throw myself into studies and prayer groups.

Then I met David, got married, started a family. Now I often find myself struggling. The reality is that single people can have fewer distractions from serving God. My life before was 1) God, 2) Church/Friends. The end. Pretty simple! Now I have 1) God, 2) Husband, 3) Kiddos, 4) Church/Friends. I feel like I never even get to number 4 anymore. I am reminded of Paul's writings on marriage:

"I want you to be free from the concerns of this life. An unmarried man can spend his time doing the Lord’s work and thinking how to please him. But a married man has to think about his earthly responsibilities and how to please his wife. His interests are divided. In the same way, a woman who is no longer married or has never been married can be devoted to the Lord and holy in body and in spirit. But a married woman has to think about her earthly responsibilities and how to please her husband. I am saying this for your benefit, not to place restrictions on you. I want you to do whatever will help you serve the Lord best, with as few distractions as possible." (1 Corinthians 7:32-35 NLT)

Y'all, I miss feeling wholly connected to God's plan. I miss the late prayer nights, the long discussions at coffee shops about life and love and mystery, the youthful dreams of what God would do next and the hopes to be part of it. The distractions now are many.

So I wrestle with new questions: what does it look like to be reaching out to others and serving God when you have a wee one on your breast and a toddler tugging at your pants? What does it look like to maintain a relationship with God when all you really want more than anything is 8 solid hours of uninterrupted sleep? What does it look like to move in power with the Holy Spirit when you don't want to move at all?

David and I have been discussing this a lot this week. I don't have solid answers at this point, but I am feeling encouraged. Unlike in my single days, I have a partner in this new confusion. He admitted that he has felt the same questions arise since getting married. And so, we will be embarking together on trying to understand what it looks like to love God, love each other, love our kiddos, and still have love to pour out on others. I am actually starting to get excited about it! If only I could get that 8 hours of sleep first...

All You Need Is...

I went on vacation back "home" recently for two and half a weeks. It was wonderful! So restful. I had very little on my to-do list except to see friends and eat at missed restaurants. Although we stayed with a friend, my mom was close enough that we saw her every day and, by the end of the trip, my daughter was thoroughly excited when I mentioned seeing Grandma. I had a break from taking care of the house and pets, a break from the aloneness of my husband's deployment, and small breaks from being a "single" mom 24/7. I felt more rested than I have in ages. I even stopped taking naps with my daughter every day!

And then I came home. (So many homes in my life!) I am not about to say that everything went back to the crazy melt-down chaos that it had been before vacation, but it definitely didn't take long for the naps to be needed once again, for the stresses to creep back in. So I begin to really process: why was it that my trip was so restful? What exactly was so different?

For the last few years my life has been an uninterrupted series of preparations and adjustments: marriage, baby, moving, deployment. For two and a half blissful weeks, I wasn't preparing or adjusting to anything. I was just being. And so I found myself less snappy with my daughter, having better conversations with my husband, feeling less guilt and pressure. I was able to exist in the present for a few weeks and I began to see things I was missing before.

A dear friend recently sent me a little gem of a book called "Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches." In the opening chapter, the author talks about how everything in the house can be chaos except her own attitude. If she has perspective and a good attitude, then the rest of it will be just fine. I think this is my lesson for this season. I think that is what my vacation started to teach me.

When living through a season of chaos, there is often little you can do about the chaos. It can be overwhelming, exhausting, disorderly (obviously), and downright discouraging. It is easy to let the stresses rise and to lose sight of what is important in the midst of SO MUCH STUFF. Enjoying my daughter is important. Enjoying my husband is important. Living today and not yesterday or tomorrow is important. Trying to remember to "be" in this moment is important. It is all a matter of persepctive.

What's funny to me is that the days where I am able to let go of all the "little things,"--to keep perspective--I get more done. I have more energy. Instead of looking at my to-do list with guilt and dread, I am willing to stop and make cookies with my daughter and laugh together and suddenly we both have better attitudes for the daily chores. Instead of looking around the house and only seeing the crumbs and dog hair everywhere, I begin to see the fun little fixes I could do to move this table there or replace that lamp with one I like better--to enjoy my home instead of feeling weighed down by it. I am able to focus on the joys of the day instead of being overwhelmed by the irritations and the undone.

If it sounds like I have gained perfect perpective and thoroughly mastered this lesson, I haven't. It's new and hard. I still find myself snapping at my daughter as I have to tell her to stop pulling out the entire roll of toilet paper for the MILLIONTH TIME. I still find myself battling guilt when I see the 3+ loads of clean laundry that have been sitting on the bed waiting to be folded for a week. I still find myself worrying about the future and whether my husband will be able to get home early for the new baby or not. But I also have been finding moments where I can throw a blanket over my head and listen to my daughter squeal as I tickle her. Moments where I can go to the thrift store and find a little painting to hang in the bathroom and make me smile every day. Moments where the future looms but I can push back the dread and instead think about the delight of learning to love another beautiful creation of God as much as I love my toddler already.

I pray that God continually gives me perspective. Because I lose it on my own every day. But when I remember that He is in control, that no one but me really cares that there are ants in my kitchen, that my family is beautiful and delightful even more than they are irritating and exhausting, then I am finding I enjoy life a whole lot more. In fact, I am seeing that there is more life to enjoy than I really imagined. I just needed to change my viewpoint.