For the weary {when feeling overwhelmed with motherhood}

When You are Feeling Overwhelmed with Motherhood

Are you weary, mama?  Are you overwhelmed today as you look down at your to-do list and see the many unchecked boxes.  You see the piles of laundry, the undone dishes, the un-swept floor.  The little ones that need you.  The fussing baby. The crying toddler.  They need you.  There is so much right now that needs to be done.  You don’t know where to begin.  You feel like you are swept in the middle of a hurricane and life is flying by you but you can’t stop to see it.  You can’t take a break.  There is so much.  So much.

There are seasons in our lives as mothers that are just overwhelming.  We are weary.  We are burdened. There are toddlers who won’t potty train but insist on tearing their diaper off and leave them stashed around the house.  There are teething babies.  There are sleepless nights.  There are siblings who fight.  There are messes too many to clean.  We fall behind again and again.  You are fighting a fight today.  This battle is real.  Be mindful.  We need to work against the works of our flesh right now.  This is the time that it is easy to give into our frustrations and allow our anger to rule.  Anger can be at another person, or at our situation, or at ourselves.  It’s too easy to feel that temptation.  We allow fear to take the reigns.  What do we do when we are weary?  We run to God.  We find our comfort in Him.  “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

The job of a mother is difficult.  It is a challenge.  It is not about accomplishing all we set out to do – the day we set out to do it.  We are working almost in slow motion, where it seems everything is pulling us back and we keep pushing forward.  We must keep at this, but we must give this work to the Lord.  As a mom, it is too easy to feel like we have to rush in and save the day.

It is too easy to believe that the weight of all of it rests on our shoulders.  What if it does? Then we will fail.  We will fail every – single – time.  We are not made out of super human strength.  We are not SuperMom.  In fact, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t exist.  I’m not sure who made up such a fallacy, but we must fight against it.  We must hand all of our trouble over to the Lord.  He will deliver us from these fears.  He will deliver us from these problems.  He will deliver us in His way and in His timing.  Not in our own strength and not in our timing.

I’m reminded of something we spoke of in Bible Study this week.  We were discussing a verse in Zechariah.

“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin…”Zechariah 4:10

These small beginnings…  Isn’t everything we do as mothers made up of small beginnings?  As we carried our babies from conception to birth – they are made of small beginnings … as but a grain of sand with a beating heart and a life.  Small beginnings.  They grow and they become a person with a personality and a smile, with glimmering eyes, with hopes and dreams.  Small beginnings.  We all come from small beginnings.  Our days are made of small beginnings.  From the day that we make up our mind to start a new routine.  Perhaps a Bible study with our children.  Perhaps, a nightly reading time.  Maybe they are learning to read for themselves.  Small beginnings.

 

It might be swim lessons – from that very first time they splash in the water until the time they are starting swim team.  Small beginnings.  It might be their first toddling steps.  Their first words.  The first of anything. Isn’t our life a series of small beginnings?  Some of these beginnings grow into what we are to become.  These small things are all around us: the world renowned artist who first had to learn to hold a pencil.  The ballerina who first had to learn to stand.  We must grow.  Do not despise these things.  Do not rush past them.  Enjoy them with patience and discernment because the Lord is working in your life.  He is working in the lives of your children.  We must not let our burdens and our boredom with what we see as mundane cloud what the Lord is doing.

 

Keep going on this journey, one step at a time.  Soon you will see what you couldn’t see before.  Even what we don’t know now, we will know one day. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity”. Keep running the race, my friends.  Even in the small stuff.  Even when you look around and it seems like your life is upside down.  Keep going through the small beginnings and allow those beginnings to give you hope.

I will leave you with one last verse.  This time it is from Isaiah,

“Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:30 – 31

We must place our hope in the Lord and not in things of this world.  We are tired, afraid, fearful, weary and starting to despise what is happening in our lives.  We feel the stress rising up in us brimming to an overflow.  We feel that everything might just crash down on us. Turn your eyes to Heaven.  Sit for a moment and pray.  Then take one step.  Just one small step to keep moving forward.