This is my newest article for Risen Motherhood. You can read the entire article here.
Our dishwasher had broken five days before, and the pile in the sink was becoming unwieldy, ready to tip at the weight of one more soap bubble. When we needed a knife or a spatula, I would wriggle one free and scrub it well enough to keep us alive, but honestly, I was desperate for my new appliance to arrive in a couple of days.
It was more than that, though. I was impatient for the dishwasher delivery because I was desperate to feel like one area of my life was under control. We had houseguests arriving in less than a week and fall cleaning was in full swing, so the house felt chaotic. I’d completely missed an article deadline and was chasing my own tail to finish it. My best friend—and her daughter, my own daughter’s best friend—had moved away the week before, and I was struggling to shepherd my daughter’s heart as I dealt with my own grief. And on top of all that, my hormones felt wonky.
House, work, friendships, parenting—in every part of my life, I was failing to measure up to the tasks and needs in front of me. My tendency had always been to work harder, push more, and sleep less. The problem was that now, squarely in middle age, I couldn’t push the way I used to. Exhaustion was catching up with me, and no matter how hard I tried, it seemed I was still dropping balls in multiple areas. It felt scary to be unable to fix the ways that I was falling short.
And yet, one of the beautiful facets of the good news of the gospel is that Christ Jesus has an answer for our failures—and it’s not what we expect.
You can read the rest of the article here.
