Have you ever wondered how some women just seem to do it all?
She’s the boss lady who owns her own scripture shop, homeschools her kids, and is writing a book.
She’s the executive at the office who serves as chair to multiple non-profit organizations, and she’s always at her sons’ (many) baseball games.
She’s the mom who goes to the gym, runs the trail, and plays tennis all before ten in the morning. She’s the one who takes food to the Food Pantry and makes her kids’ after-school activities her first priority.
We all know women like this in our society. While we cheer them on in their endeavors, we also feel a twinge of jealousy creep up inside of us. “How does she do it?” we first ask ourselves. And then the comparison question soon follows, “How come she can do it all and I can’t?”
This is the question that we are really asking when we see women multi-task like superheroes. When this question comes into our presence, our first inclination is to doubt our own worth, schedules, and choices in life. Comparison slides us into a pit of insecurity, so dark and so fast that we don’t know we are trapped until we can’t seem to get ourselves undone.
Trust me, it’s where I’ve lived these past few years as a wife, mom, and pursuer of purpose. It’s ugly, it’s hard, and it’s not at all how God intended for us to view ourselves or other people.
You see, I want to do it all and have it all. I’m a Type A Perfectionist through and through and expect myself to do the best that I can with what I’ve been given. It’s truly a blessing and a curse. I deeply desire to live life on purpose, and I value relationships and community so much that I over-commit, over-exhaust, and overdo anything that I set my mind to. That’s why you’ll see me working an 8-5 job, typing blog posts on my lunch break, and then having some sort of Bible Study or girls night at least once a week. Then, I’ll come home at night or on the weekends and work on my print shop and speeches that I pray will inspire the audience that has asked me to come and share. And I’m doing this all as a wife and a mom, the two roles that I value most but sometimes mess up. I’m a yes girl because I have a fear of missing out.
It’s easy to look at someone else and think they have it all together. It’s easy to wonder how they do it all. But what isn’t easy is realizing what they are missing.
The boss lady who homeschools her kids? I bet she really misses her friends.
The executive? Who does her laundry and cooks dinner for her family?
The stay-at-home mom? Is she missing her husband because he’s working overtime during this season of life?
Looks can be deceiving, yes this is true. What one mom has, the other might not. Let us not get so trapped into comparing ourselves with each other that we miss out on what we have to celebrate in our own lives.
Your schedule is going to look different than mine. That’s okay! My schedule isn’t perfect, but there is a reason why I’ve said yes to the things I’ve said yes to and you just have to know that I do have it all. I have both exhaustion and excitement, anger and a positive attitude, a messy home and a maid who helps me twice a month. I have family that feeds and takes care of my kids while I’m at work, and I have a husband who is a fantastic dad and keeper of the laundry. I’m the reader of bedtime stories and make train noises with the yogurt spoons because right now the mornings and the evenings are my sacred hours with my kids during the week. I have girls’ nights because I need friends, and I have weekends spent completely with my family of five and nobody else. It’s not perfect but it’s life. Having it all isn’t as glamorous as we dream it to be. Having it all means having both the good and the bad, the happy and the hard.
Today, let us be thankful for what we do have. If we begin to compare ourselves with our friends, co-workers, or women we only know through social media, let us take a step back and realize that nobody has a perfect schedule, perfect life, perfect family, or perfect kids. Superheroes are not real. But women who love, care, provide, create, and serve others.
Those women are real. And, I bet that woman is you.
You are amazing, and you don’t need to wish away the life that you’ve been given. Sure, make some changes if they are necessary but don’t get trapped in comparing your life to someone else’s. Celebrate your victories, both big and small, and know that you were created for a purpose.
So go and be you today. And when your friend asks you how you do it all, tell her the truth – the happy and the hard – and encourage her to celebrate the family she’s been given to serve as a mom.
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- Heaviness and Newness - December 23, 2016
