Everyone told me this was that season, but I had no idea how much it would take to manage everyone’s camps and practices and lessons and appointments. Some days Emma and I are more taxi drivers than anything else. A million dishwasher exchanges, a million loads of laundry exchanges, never enough time in the day.
Lots of ships passing in the night for Matt and I. Lots of important relationships and activities by the wayside. I have missed writing, and fall into bed completely wiped and wondering how I can possibly make it all work tomorrow.
While life had been full overflowing with so many good things, it’s been too much. Unsustainable, and I wouldn’t want it to be our way of life, anyway.
So here we are—after busting butt for a week to beg in every favor to cover every single spinning plate, filling the fridge, planning out every child pass off…and almost melting down at midnight with a 3:10 am alarm set—I’m off North for our annual One Mission Society board meetings.
Life has chaosed to a place it doesn’t feel like I can possibly be gone for 3 days. It took SO much work and time and sacrifice and friends to even go, I want to passionately promise the kids, one of whom is always hanging tearfully on my leg, I will never leave again ever again not for one hour.
I remember once a family with six teenage kids coming to Haiti for a week, and telling me how blessed we were to have such a slow and steady and family-focused schedule. Everyone home and at dinner every evening. No sports and lessons and entertainment pulling us all a million directions. That life in America wasn’t like that.
I agreed with her patiently, but silently, emphatically, thought it is what you make it, sweetheart. We live like this cause we choose to, and we would in America, too.
He reminded me that conversation when Matt and I were trying to remember the last time that all 7 of us, and only the 7 of us, had dinner together.
I thought my boundary of “one thing per kid and church” meant we would never get to this scurried state, but I was wrong. Turns out church is 24 times 7 if you let it….all such good and precious and important things. Turns out “one thing”, like cheer or baseball in America, is all weekend, every weekend, five weekends in a row like we just finished, though he be seven, or three days a week of practice plus clinics, camps and competitions. Plus Lily working and her robust social calendar, plus Nora at ASL camp, which notified us at the very last moment an adult over 18 must attend every minute of with her.
“One thing per kid plus church” doesnt include two days at the DMV for drivers tests, extra appointments at the dentist for an infected baby tooth or dropping teens for babysitting or housesitting or four kids birthdays this summer, or pets or playdates or…
Divide and conquer! Gaga encouraged me a few weeks ago….and while she is right we have divided again and again….none of this feels much like conquering.
I hear Him gently reminding Martha only one thing is needed. I see Emma asking me to read her the book….and cleaning up hours later after everyone’s in bed and finding it still unread on the couch. I see Lily and Sofie both above my eye level, flying and roller-coastering through their last months in our home, and hear Him urging me not to miss my disciples. I see myself, trying to fill a water bottle at the fridge with one hand while emptying the dishwasher with the other while listening to Ben talk about his birthday wish list and knowing this is stretched beyond His good.
He reminded me gently at the altar on Sunday that I’ve grown far too exhausted to get up before the house and start with Him and His Word, living instead off snatches of It in four minute intervals throughout the day. Though He’s reminded me before. Though I’ve promised and affirmed and known the habit’s sweetness and sustaining power.
All this said, He also gave me an incredibly challenging and painful and sacrificial opportunity last week to shut my mouth and captive my thoughts and TRUST Him, really trust Him. And I DID, perhaps mostly out of insufficient bandwidth, and on the other side of a dark week, He was faithful. And is redeeming it. Truly. Clearly. In front of my eyes.
Last time I tried to fix it and control it for Him and created a terrible and long-lasting mess. This time, I saw Him free-handedly do His miraculous work on hearts, in a matter of days, because I truly trusted Him.
The circumstance of seeing Him at work poked me with Greg Benson’s ever prodding question, What is God trying to teach you?
One, that my frustration and disappointment with myself over letting us get here is only beneficial in that it points me to Him….not to beat me up or keep us stuck. His mercies new every morning, even this 3 am one, are what I need, and a new start, which He is always ready to give, only upon us asking for it. Whatever you’re beating yourself up over, repent and be forgiven and put your eyes back on Him and go again.
Two, that when we are certain the earth cannot spin without all our efforts, we have become the god. Our kids the idol. Our events. Our MORE. Bankrupt. He is the one and only thing we cannot afford to disappoint, cannot afford to rush by, the only One whose efforts are enough and full.
I’m learning that sometimes disappointing our kids and others and even ourselves is the lesser cost. Every single YES costs something, and if we don’t guard and be prayerful in our yesses, we will be paying for it in ways that don’t satisfy, that don’t have eternal value, and that aren’t building His kingdom, that aren’t filling us with Himself.
Maybe I was right when I judged my friend, that our days and schedules and family rhythms and priorities ARE what we make it. But I knew nothing about the pressures of this culture for and in our kids, in our lives….or how hard we’d have to fight.
Last weekend Ben had a big final tournament game Sunday morning in Starkville. After several Saturday games, we packed Ben up and brought him home Saturday night for Sunday morning church. We totally let his team, his coaches, and the other parents down….we were reminded. The FOMO in me was already writhing, but when the other first baseman woke up super sick and hospitalized Sunday morning, and Ben was not there to play the bag, it almost killed me. Letting them down and missing out almost killed me.
We can’t miss church for baseball, I kept telling myself, telling Ben. After all, this is Matt’s job!
NO.
His gracious, still small voice instantly corrected me. I and my commands are not your job. They are your priority.
I am learning that our true priority is not in what we say it is. I can say dinner together as a family is my priority all I want. That Sunday morning community worship is. That my marriage is. That my time with Him is.
But if we can’t remember the last time it happened, if we skip it for a play game, if I lose it for a frantic packed schedule, if I’m too doggone exhausted for it… My eyes are not upon Him, and He is NOT my true God and King and Lord.
I have settled for idols when I have the true and mighty God after me! I have led my family in bankrupt ways when His is better and the only way that satisfies. I have missed the one thing needed when the world told me it was 100 things. Swings and misses I cannot afford.
Luke 10:38-42
Martha and Mary
[38] Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. [39] And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. [40] But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” [41] But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, [42] but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
