When Motherhood Feels Like a Juggling Act: The Source of Balance

Motherhood often feels like juggling to me.  And I don’t even know to how to juggle.  That’s not a good start is it?

 

There are seemingly a million pulls in a million directions and I’m trying my best to do well in every area but sometimes, it flat just doesn’t seem like enough.

I had that thought yesterday, that very idea.  It’s so closely related to the searing question, “am I enough?” I’ve seen that lie.  I know Truth.  And yet still I ask it in a roundabout way.

Yesterday was a good example of this, because it wasn’t extraordinary.  It was quite normal rather.

It was late afternoon and the weather was my idea of perfect.  The grass was just mowed and everything outside teems with life right now.  It’s not to be missed.

 

So, in the midst of our spring cleaning week, the week where I declare war in the name of structure, when we tackle one room a day until each room is properly ordered and organized, we head outside.

We eat drippy popsicles. We lay in the grass and stare at clouds.  Heads together, giggling.  We see pirate ships and ducks, crocodiles and snails in those clouds. We run silly races, do cartwheels and stop to fancy roses bursting open.

This is life.  These are memories.  This is the time I want to spend.  The mama I want to be.

But then we come inside to a dishwasher than needs unloading and dinner that needs cooking.  Dinner plan A failed, and I needed to come up with plan B, stat.

I pick something and commit.  But it involves crushing and dredging and there is a host of children still high on fresh air, dancing around and asking “mama, can I help?”  And I want to say yes, I really want to say yes.  But it’s messy and there is raw chicken and time is getting away from me.  Already, that popsicle mama is fading and the mama with the furrowed brow is surfacing.  Why didn’t I pick a simpler plan B?

Meanwhile my dancing and chatty girls put their heads together and excitedly bound downstairs to their array of dress up pretties.  They return in heels.  With gloved arms, ball gowns.  They fix their hair in that charming way 4 and 6 year olds do and they declare tonight, fancy dinner night.

“Mama, we’ve picked out the prettiest dress for you.  And wait until you see the shoes!  Can we have lip gloss, mama?  And dessert?  We have to have dessert for fancy dinner night, right?” They barely pause to breath.

Yes, I want to say yes.  I want to be this mama too.  I want to dive into fancy dinner night, add candles, wear earrings.  And lip gloss. But it’s 6:30.  Dinner is not quite ready.  The 2 year old is past his tipping point for meal time.  And the effects of skipping that nap aren’t helping his self-control.  Or mine.

I manage to throw some no-bake cookies together while dinner finishes baking.  I quickly slip out of my shorts and tank and into the lace dress my sweet girls picked from my closet.  And, of course, the strappy, 3 inch heels I wore the day I married their daddy.  They picked those as well.

I prance around the kitchen on these 14 year old stilts, pop dinner onto plates and we sit at the table.  Candles, earrings and lip gloss didn’t make the cut.  Neither did my hair apparently, as my 6 year old reminds me that a messy bun isn’t exactly fancy.

But we dine.  And we savor.  And it was fun. ish.  I wish I was less frazzled, less hurried.

Lying in bed last night, I ran the events of the day through my head again.  The bedrooms that didn’t get vacuumed. The picture that didn’t get hung.  The living room that looks a little more lived in than average as I focus my cleaning efforts elsewhere this week.  I could have been more patient.  Less tense.  Enjoyed more.

And why does it seem like I always get about 80% done?  List for the day?  About 80%.  Fancy dinner night? About 80%.  Consistently, 80%.

It feels like I’m constantly juggling the demands of kids.  Mama, come look!  Mama will you play with me?  Mama, can we paint?  Mama, can you read to me?  Yes, yes I want be that mama, do those things.

Juggling the demands of home.  Cleaning, cooking, schooling, weed the garden, keep up with the laundry, clean out the car, the garage, clean off the deck.  You name it, it probably needs cleaned.  And I want to be that mama too.  I like clean things.

Throw in working out, spending time with husband, and friends and in the Word and reading and working and growing.  I want to be that mama too.

But there are so many balls.  And sometimes it feels like they are all coming at the same time.  And I only ever catch about 80% of them.

And then, this morning, there is Truth.

 

Not 80%. Nothing.  Unless I abide.

And then this.Not 80%, full.  If I ask.

Sometimes I remember this, but often times I need a reminder.  A reminder that this is my life.  This juggling is it.  These balls are real and they are good.  And while I can prioritize and have lists and do my best, at the end of the day, most days, it won’t all be perfectly balanced.

Because the truth is, I am not enough.  But the beauty of it all is that He is. The source of balance?  It’s Him.

His power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).  And for that I am so very thankful.

So I will abide, bravely.