I didn't do much on this three-day weekend. Well, I did get a few things accomplished. I am pretty much ready to drop off 80+ items for a local consignment sale. The laundry is caught up. I deep cleaned my kitchen. With Wally's help, my floors are cleaner than they were this morning. I played "Memory" and "Monopoly Empire" with my daughters.
Yet, as I reflect on the last three days, I can't help but think I could've done more. Maybe I should've done more. I have yet to see if there are old costumes in the dress-up box that could be consigned. I am sure that if I sorted the clothes in the hamper, I could run a load yet tonight. And I didn't even try to clean the oven.
I get on Facebook and Instagram. There I see the memories my friends made with their kids over the long, holiday weekend. Soon I find myself thinking maybe we should have taken the girls somewhere and done something with them.
Or, maybe we could've tackled one of those projects we never seem to get around to getting done because we tell ourselves we don't have the time. If I had better thought through this weekend, if I had planned more, then maybe the bathrooms could've been painted or the mulch laid or the basement cleaned out.
It doesn't take much for my mind to spiral into a black hole of regret when I really don't have anything to regret. Whether I am comparing my life to the social media image of "everyone" else or fighting my own unrealistic expectations of myself - my thought life can be a weary place to reside, where the glass is rarely half full and always seems to be half empty.
Can anyone else relate to the striving? The feelings of inadequacy? To the idea of enough?
Overall, I have had a really GOOD weekend. I have been productive. I have rested. I have worshipped. I have played. I have exercised. I have planned for the week ahead. Yet, I am not content . . . I want more . . .
Success is only elusive if we are the ones defining it. If we allow God's definition of success to pervade our thoughts and permeate our motivations, we will find contentment.
He calls us to "be still." He tells us that His "load is easy" and His "burden is light." Yet, I struggle to live that way -still with an easy load and light burdens.
I read this on Instagram recently and it really hit home:
"We want formulas for victory, but God is forever reminding us the He alone delivers, and His greatest purpose in us isn't for our success, but our surrender." ~Ruth Chow Simmons
I SO want to take each day and receive it as the gift from God that it is, -to be faithful in it with the relationships and responsibilities that God has laid in my hands that day - not worrying about precedents that might be set for tomorrow or what tomorrow itself might hold. It is a definite balancing act and the tension is real.
But if I believe that the day and what it holds has passed through God's providential hands, then when the sun sets on it, I must have the faith that His grace will cover what I did and didn't do. If I did what I did "as for the Lord," living in surrender to Him, then no matter the outcome, it would be successful - maybe not by my standards, but by His.
As a mom, heck, as an adult - there are a lot of things that I do in a day that I will simply have to get up and re-do tomorrow. As long as the Lord-tarries and we live in this fallen place, it is easy to become weary in what seems like the mundane and even meaningless.
I want to find success in feelings of accomplishment. But my goal should not be in the doing or in the getting "it" done. Instead my goal should be stepping aside and allowing God to assign the value for my days, then I am guaranteed success - for His purpose and plans are never thwarted. The day is no longer about me and what do with it, but rather what He does through my surrender of it.
My expectations and plans are what I need to surrender. This is the place where He can then redeem my 24 hours and do more than I could have ever asked for or imagined. From this perspective, I can rest tonight. I can be assured that my weekend was indeed good. I can get up tomorrow ready to do it all again.
I can rest because God has finished all the work on my behalf. God rested on the 7th day because His work of creating the heavens and the earth was done. Jesus sits on the right-hand of the throne of God, because His work is accomplished. Then, why do I keep struggling, questioning and doubting if I measure up? Because my focus is on myself, on others, on anything other than God.
So tonight, I wrap up this post and find an hour and a half has passed. It's been good for me to reflect on what God has shown me and grown me this weekend. No, we didn't invite that couple over for fellowship. But, God has shown me His grace and given me a sense of sufficiency that what He did with this weekend was good.
It was a good weekend.
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