To the Mom Who Is Anxious

Motherhood is tangled.

It twists. And turns. And takes issue. And lets go of that issue. And then puts a foot down. And then lets that foot remain filthy while washing another's. It is a life-giving exercise in humility by way of life-taking sacrifice.

And it's hard. 

Moms are walking contradictions. Christ-loving and cussaholics. Anger-filled and Spirit filled. Monsters and meek. Slamming things down and smiling at our precious gifts.

How can this be? Are we less than we should be? Are we not rising to our full potential? Are we not who God has called us to be? Are we, gasp, failing?

This verse in Matthew: "Be perfect, therefore as I am perfect," used to cause me great anxiety.

I spent years trying to impress the God of the universe with my hack-job at morality. I assumed that these words were a literal benchmark. The cliff face of legalism was needing to be scaled. Works were workable. This verse would echo my insecurity, "You are not doing enough. You are not enough. Do more. Be more."

This especially turned anxiety-vicious when I ignored God for awhile so that I could get on with my real life. 

Eventually, lodged in-between the perpetual tension of good and bad, I'd burn out and land at the bottom of that cliff with bloody fingernails and broken bones. 

One day my son came up to me with tears in his eyes and said, "Mom, I am so tired of not being perfect. I wish I was perfect like Jesus."

Knife in the heart.

I know that very same weariness.

But we aren't competitors with Jesus. We are co-heirs.

That's why I couldn't pendulum between morality and my messiness anymore. That's why I finally gave into Jesus.And let me be clear, I didn't go easily.

Jesus is God's answer to our cycles of soul destruction. Jesus is a purified entry point that can reshape our souls. Jesus smashes our false identifiers and reconstructs an entirely new reflection from the image of himself.

In Matthew 5:48 the calling towards being perfect isn't used in the same context as in English. It is used as a verb, a progressive action. In the Greek, téleios, translates into "fully grown." A process of maturing. Of going from broken to completion. He who began a good work in you will complete it. 

This type of perfect tells us that God is with us through it all until the end. This type of perfect applauds growth in small, slow root-bound ways.

If you dig a bit deeper, one concordance explains téleios, as "going through the necessary stages to reach the end-goal."

The necessary stages.

Motherhood is one of those necessary stages: it is the richest soil I've ever been buried under. 

That's why God calls children a blessing. It isn't beauty from the beginning, but damn, is it ever ripe for an eventual Eden.

The root word of téleios is tel, as in telescope. The idea being that our lives mimic something that is slowly being pulled out of itself to grow to a place that can magnify something far greater. We are beginning to scratch the surface of eternity here. But to get there we have to pass through the dimness; to withstand the grit of the grind. 

When we are depressed and beat up. Mad and alone. Hungry and tired. Burning with lust and emotionally wrung out. God is still committed to knitting us together by way of those exposed nerves that seem to wrap themselves around our souls. He wants to take those and practically reveal himself to you; to show you what He is up to when you are hurting.

But we have to go back to the dirt. To the place where God is cultivating something unseen from our tangled mess.

He is a roots-based God. He knows where to plant things that will flourish. He is a God that will not leave you to dry up. To waste away. To fail. That is not His plan for you. That is not His plan for me.
 
Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail...because their water flows from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing." (Ezekiel 47:12)

Like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. (Psalm 1:3)

And the LORD will continually guide you, And satisfy your desire in scorched places, And give strength to your bones; And you will be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. (Isaiah 58:11)

Do you feel directionless? The Lord will continually guide you.

Do you feel dead on the inside? He will satisfy your desire in the scorched places. 

Do you feel bone-tired? He will give strength to your bones.

Do you feel like a failure? You will be like a watered garden whose waters DO NOT FAIL.

If anxiety is threatening to strangle you, take a sip of these refreshing truths. Read them over and over. Soberly consider where your roots are planted; where your worth is parked. Allow God to plant you next to the streams your standing alongside, but not drinking from. Trust that he knows the way.

If you believe in Jesus, then those life-draining days when you feel like you are being drilled into the ground by the constant fighting, crying, feeding, whining, tantrums, waking, discipline, yelling. Which I feel everyday, even in this minute.

You can also believe that you are being pushed down into the darkness to take root.

Those roots will grow, twist, push, prod, reach, barge, and break through in the dark.

In secret.

Where no one sees.

Where no one knows. Except for the One who says He knows the hairs on your head.

He knows the pain that is threatening to choke out His plan for you. He knows that failure. That flaw. That depression. That abuse. That disillusionment. That feeling of being trapped. That addiction. That emptiness. That drain. That anger. That unhappiness. That longing. That lie.

And even so He says, "Do not be afraid; you are worth more." (Luke 12:7) Will you still feel anxious? Yes. Afraid? Yes. Maybe for the rest of your life. But that doesn't change his plan for you. In Luke 12, the phrase you are worth more is diapheró, which literally means to "carry through".

God is committed to carry you through.

Through this. Through today. Through tomorrow.

Let Him.

We're in this together,
M