Free to Be…. Me?

I was at Church a few weeks ago and the priest was encouraging us to think of our gifts and talents. When he asked, “What are you good at?" sadly my first thought was “Ummm…. Facebook posts”. It’s not that God forgot me in the gifts and talents department, it’s just that being a stay home mom, it’s so hard to feel successful. If I have a great day being present to my kids and playing with them and teaching them important life lessons (like how to use a whoopee cushion)…then the house is a pig sty, the laundry is piled higher than Mt. Everest, and there is nothing to eat. On the other hand, if I clean the house all day, fold ten loads of laundry, and cook a nutritious gourmet dinner (okay hamburger helper), then my children are feeling neglected in between the orders I’m barking at them (Put your shoes away! Clean up the train tracks! Can someone please help the baby?!?!)

This was a very hard reality for me at first. I had felt fairly successful in my life prior to motherhood. And anything I wasn’t good at (like when I tried to play t-ball for the first time in first grade) I just quit. So here I was a new mom and I couldn’t just pick a different game.

The guilt that accompanies motherhood can be crippling. I know that guilt can be a good thing and serve a good purpose to show me when I’m off track in some way, but it also can eat away at my joy and rob me of my peace if I let it. This is where prayer can really help. God shows me which guilt is really my soul crying out for a change and which guilt is just ridiculous expectations that I’ve heaped upon myself. Often it is because I am comparing myself with some idealistic perception I have of someone else. Suzie’s house is always so immaculate. Sally is so organized. Jane works out everyday and wears a size 6.

Through prayer God helps me see what He is calling me to be. Of course I won’t feel successful if I am trying to be someone else. Especially if I’m trying to be everyone else. In the words of John Henry Newman,

“God has created me to do him some definite service; he has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission - I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next... I have a part in a great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons..."

God wants me to be myself! How freeing! If I just need to be me, I can do that! As my dad says, “know what makes you great and do it on purpose.”

The quest and challenge is to be the best version of myself that I can be. … but we’ll save that for another blog…