Is It Really About Capacity?
I don’t think there is a women out there who doesn’t question if they have it what it takes.
Maybe you envy the mom who “does it all”.
Maybe you try to shame yourself into magically producing more motivation.
Maybe you simply push harder.
I’m guilty of them all.
But what’s really lurking behind all those things? So often it’s the whispering voice that says “If you only had more capacity. Why don’t you? Everyone else seems to.”
As a mom of four, I’ve lost count how many times women have said to me, “I only have 1 (or 2 or 3) kid and I can barely manage… I don’t know how you do it.”
I cringe inside every time I hear those words.
I hear the crushing comparison they feel. I hear the disappointment over the hardness of life they carry tucked away in their heart. Mostly I hear the quiet lie of the enemy telling them they are doing it wrong. They are a failure.
I hear it because I’ve lived it too.
You want to know the honest truth?
I have no more capacity than you do. It’s no easier for me than it is for you. With each new baby added to our family, with each new challenge life brings, I’ve had to learn that my sufficiency and capacity don’t come from me. They can only come from God. Apart from Him, none of us can do it all… let alone make it through a day of raising kids, no matter how many you have.
When I first thought of being a mother, I never planned for 4 strong willed kids, I never planned for special needs to be two of our children’s journey, I never planned for genetic anxiety to be a thing…. I never planned for how hard life is. None of us ever do.
After 12 stretching years of being a mom here is what I’ve learned; we were never meant to be enough. We were never meant to have the capacity to handle it all.
We were never meant to be sufficient enough… apart from Christ.
Why? We were made for the garden. We were made for perfection. A world with no sin, no sadness, no financial stress, no bad attitudes, no temper tantrums, no isolation, no anxiety, no sibling fights… we were made for perfection.
A world where we never felt like we had to be sufficient or have more capacity because God was the only one who needed to be that.
But we don’t live in the garden anymore do we? We live in this world between two worlds. The now and the not yet. We carry burdens our shoulder’s weren’t meant to carry. No wonder we get tired. No wonder we feel like we aren’t enough.
We need the promise of Jesus ever present in our minds:
“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. ”
When we can release our loads to Him and let Him carry our weakness, that’s when our capacity increases. Because it’s His shoulder’s that carry our load, not ours. We partner with Him in all we do and therefore bring His strength into everything we do.
Psalm 81:6 says,
““Now I will take the load from your shoulders; I will free your hands from their heavy tasks.”
I love that imagery. I picture my big basket of life that is crushing my back, being shifted onto His much larger, stronger shoulders as He leads me to a path of joy and freedom.
I still wake up much of the time and try to pick up the basket myself. It’s always too heavy and it always makes me tired. I never have enough capacity for it.
But He always does.
Next time those condemning thoughts about capacity creep in… let’s remember the truth.
We don’t have enough… but He does.
Learning with You,
Elizabeth