putting on my big girl panties

One of the best things about our kids are sharing the stories that we learn as moms. The times we sympathetically nod at the mom trying to check out faster at Target while her little ones is throwing themselves on the floor of the aisle at Target. The laugh we share with strangers when they make silly raspberry noises at the restaurant table. The kind words when we are having a hard day and just don't know how to balance it all.

For me as a mom, I have been able to learn to laugh off the dramatic stage falls on the floor when Lila does not get her way. For the most part, I try not to be frazzled when I am "that mom" with a diaper bag full of tricks and still holding a screaming toddler. I have a much harder time with the balance. The balance of being everything to everyone. Of trying to be an employee at work, a mom at home, and maybe finding myself for a few minuted in the middle. 

I read a recommendation for a new book from Raechel at Finding My Feet (who is fabulous and has two adorable blond haired kiddos) called "Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches." I have taken my time ordering it on Amazon since every time I am on there I get distracted by cheap diapers. But when it arrived in the mail this week, I swallowed it whole in one sitting on the coach. So many amazing mom moments turned into God moments. The author Rachel Jankovic has five kids under five and if she can find a way to turn afternoon carpool from hell into a teachable moment about how lucky they are to have a car and how God has blessed them, then I should probably shut up and read.

One chapter in particular really spoke to me as she talked about letting ourselves feel pitiful and overwhelmed at our life as a mom, which I have a tendency to do occasionally (cough, every day, cough).

God gave this to me. I may not be overwhelmed about it. I can try as hard as I can, and maybe fail sometimes. I can try as hard as I can and fall asleep at the dinner table. I can try as hard as I can and be completely burned out at the end of the day. But I may not be overwhelmed. Actually, I may be overwhelmed, but I may not say I am overwhelmed! The words have a power over us. If you say it, you allow it for yourself. You give yourself that little bit of room to say, "But I can't."

I would highly recommend you pick yourself up a copy. Or just read that paragraph above over and over. Not a sponsored post, I just really needed to hear that this week.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

~2 Corinthians 12:9