“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Matthew 11:28 NIV

I love this verse. As a mom of 3 girls ages 6 and under who also happens to have a full-time job, I desperately need some of this rest more often than I will even admit. I am currently in a season of the school year where I am even more desperate for this rest that usual. Both my husband and I work in public schools so this time of year means state testing, end of the year events, and lots of extra duties. We tend to be tired and our patience is often very thin.  Three young girls who are very messy, incredibly needy, and often clingy, compounds the situation. The concept of having time alone is as rare as my kids noticing a mess on their own and doing something about it. Like many moms my age in this modern world, I live hours away from the majority of both sides of our family, so calling them up for an afternoon break or an overnight escape is really not an option.

So, what about us? What about people like me and many of you reading this that read that verse about rest and would love to have a piece of that, but are currently lucky to  take a trip to the bathroom without someone screaming outside the door? I am learning, very slowly and definitely not always successfully, that it is vital to be guarded and intentional about how we spend our time. When I was a stay-at-home mom last school year, it wa fairly easy to spend time reading my Bible or studying first thing in the morning. Now that I am back at work, I have had to find more creative ways to invest in my relationship with God.

One way I have found to study and keep my faith strong is by finding some great Christian podcasts to listen to on my commute, while I cook dinner, and while I am folding laundry. I have also made it my purpose to sit down every morning when I get to work, before the work day starts, to either journal or read whatever Bible study I am currently working on. I have found that doing that each morning helps me to center myself before the stresses of the day start weighing on me. I also love to read at night. Sometimes it will simply be a reading plan on my Bible app, or maybe whatever book we are studying in our small group, or often a book I am just reading on my own (right now it is Wild Goose Chase by Mark Batterson). I know that days that I get distracted or my focus is not on God’s purpose for my day, I have a hard day.

All of those things are wonderful ideas, however, my days are not always easy. I started having one of those not so easy days today. My girls have not mastered the concept of sleeping in and when they are up, they think that momma needs to be up too. I tried real hard to be able to go back to bed this morning. Got them juice to drink, something to eat, and put a movie on that they love. However, they were not convinced. Even after I laid back down, there was constantly someone coming in needing something. So, reluctantly, a very crabby momma was up. I tried to make the most of it and brought my book out to read, but inevitably someone was either needing something or crawling all over me. I found myself getting more and more agitated at the level of neediness today. After getting to church it didn’t get much better. The last several weeks my two youngest have decided they like to come in and out from the nursery, and when they are in the sanctuary they are very loud. Today was no exception. When we got home, I fixed them all lunch and waited until they were all happily eating before even attempting to get my own plate, in hopes that they wouldn’t need anything once I sat down. Of course, I was mistaken. As soon as I sat down, one was needing help in the bathroom and another wanted more food. So, what’s a mom to do? This verse about rest had been on my mind since I left church. So, I decided to do something about it. I got my youngest down for her nap and went straight to bed myself. I had a million things to do, and still do, but I realized that me getting some rest would benefit my family more than me begrudgingly washing dishes, cleaning, or doing laundry.

The book I mentioned earlier, Wild Goose Chase, has been a great one so far. One of the things the author talks about is being responsibly irresponsible. When it comes to resting in Jesus, sometimes we need to set some responsibilities aside and simply rest. In the very next verses Jesus goes on to say how his yoke is easy and his burden is light.  Why do we feel like we have to keep carrying our heavy burdens. If Jesus needed to constantly go away from his followers and often even his disciples to spend time in prayer and simply just resting, shouldn’t we do the same? If we want to be able to fully love our children and our husbands well, we need to be well rested and full of the love of God to begin with.

So I want to encourage all the worn out mommas like me out there, learn how to be responsibly irresponsible. The mess will be there tomorrow, frozen pizza is okay for dinner sometimes, and 2nd day clothes are sometimes okay (do the smell test first though). You will never be perfect, but you do need to be present. You can’t give what you don’t have so make sure you spend time abiding in the Word and in prayer. Take time investing in your mental and physical health. Your family will thank you!

Sadly, Christians are often known for being hypocritical (saying one thing and doing another).  Unfortunately, because we are all human, that reputation tends to be accurate more than we would like. It is so easy to tell someone the right thing to do, even if we aren’t doing it ourselves. Everyone has an opinion it seems, even if we aren’t applying those truths in our own lives. The Bible addresses this very issue in Matthew 7:3 (ESV), “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” It is always easier to look at what someone else is doing wrong than admit our own faults. Just like it would be impossible to help someone get a speck out of their eye while we walked around with a log in our own, it is impossible for us to truly be effective with helping other people while we refuse to deal with our own issues.

Growing up, I was probably one of the most judgemental people you would meet. I hate that about myself. I had an opinion about everyone and everything. Sadly, most of those opinions were based on limited information and even more limited life experiences. I had not learned the value of putting myself in someone else’s’ shoes. Thankfully, although I still struggle with this from time to time, I have learned a lot about pausing before formulating an opinion in the past several years. Teaching has been incredibly valuable in this learning process. As a teacher I deal with a lot of variables on a daily basis. The biggest being the kids I teach. They come from vastly different home lives, some great, some devastatingly sad. This has taught me such a lesson about judging before you know the backstory. Another thing that has taught me this is being married to a school administrator. When you are not the person ultimately making decisions and having to follow rules, laws, and procedures, it is easy to complain and have an opinion about how things should be done. However, when those things fall on you, the simple fix is often not plausible. Often, as is true in most of life, everything isn’t always black and white. Those simple fixes that we can easily come up with without all the information, are often unreasonable in the real world.

So, what should we do? I don’t believe that we should stop trying to help simply because we are imperfect and have our own set of issues. However, I do think that it is vital to do a whole lot more listening to others than telling them what to do. Over the last several years this has been something that I have really felt like God has been teaching me. It’s been amazing to me how being aware of this tendency of mine has actually caused me to have more compassion when dealing with a difficult situation or person. I have even found myself praying more for those difficult people because I have realized that there is a backstory to why they are causing me frustration or pain. The Bible speaks loudly on this subject of forgiving others and being compassionate in regards to the faults of others:

“Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful. Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.” Colossians 3:13-17 (NLT)

My pray is that we would all take this advice and strive to be a better representative of Jesus every single day!

Over the last several years, I have been honing in my gardening skills. I grew up on a farm, but we really didn’t spend much time on yard work. Although I am a far cry from having a green thumb, my skills have slowly improved. This year we decided to add some fruit trees to our yard. We chose to start out with 2 apple trees of different varieties and 1 peach tree. We opted to spend a little extra money to get a some trees that were a little bigger, just to give them a better chance to survive in our windy, often dry, climate.

When we planted the trees over spring break, I surprised my oldest daughter when I told her to pull all the flowers off the peach tree. When we bought it she was so excited to see pretty little flowers all over the branches. I explained to her that even though this tree is a fruit tree, we need to not allow it to make any fruit yet because the tree needed to build a good set of roots first. She was a bit disappointed and because of the fact she is only 6 years old, didn’t fully understand. She finally just had to take my word for it. Later that evening it hit be that I am exactly like my daughter. It seems like no matter what I am doing in my life, I want to see the fruit immediately. Sadly, that is not how things work in God’s economy.

If you look all throughout scripture, there are so many parables, stories, and references to agriculturally related things.  Jesus himself talked about how we are pruned in order to bear more fruit. “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.” John 15:1-4 NLT

It is counterintuitive to me to actually take branches that can produce fruit away in order to produce more fruit. It seems like the more branches you have that could bear fruit, the better. But, that is not the way it works. Not in nature, and not in our own lives. In nature, too many fruit-bearing branches stunts the plant. It takes a lot of effort to produce fruit. If a plant has too many branches allowed to produce, the fruit will be smaller and not as high quality. In our lives, if we are trying to do too many things, all of those things will suffer. I know in my own life, if I have too many irons in the fire, nothing gets done well.

My husband and I have made the conscience decision in our own lives to “prune” and try to only keep the best fruit-bearing branches. We are both involved in public schools. He is a principal and I am a teacher, both in different schools. That keeps us fairly busy, especially during the spring semester. Because of that, we have chosen to be guarded about our schedule. We go against the grain a little and don’t run our kids to every sporting event, community event, or other activity. We also choose to not over-volunteer or jump into too many groups. Although we do find ourselves overly exhausted from time to time, especially with 3 kids age 6 and under and jobs that are sometimes fairly stressful, we are home most nights and most weekends. During seasons where we haven’t been as guarded, I often found myself being so exhausted that I neglected reading my Bible and didn’t give my girls the focus they need at this stage of life. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still don’t have this balance figured out. However, I know that when I am focused on a few branches bearing fruit in my life, rather than too many branches trying to make tons of fruit, I am a lot more successful. Maybe we as a society need to take some advice from Jesus and cut off some of the anemic branches we are forcing to bear fruit, in order to allow the healthy ones to produce a real harvest.

Around the 1st of the year, my middle school-age niece invited me to join her in a reading plan on our YouVersion Bible app. We, along with my mother and sister, have been doing a plan to read through the New Testament. It has been such a good thing going through some of the oh-so-familiar stories in the Gospels. It never ceases to amaze me how no matter how familiar the stories may be, the Holy Spirit can always breathe new life into it and reveal something fresh and new.

Last night I was reading in Mark 6 about when Jesus walked on water and calmed a storm. Now, as someone who grew up in church, went to Vacation Bible School every year, and who has been the story lady for VBS for the last several years, this is not a new story to me. However, the version in Mark struck me in a way it never had before. When I read 6:47-50 I noticed something I never had really thought about. “Late that night, the disciples were in their boat in the middle of the lake, and Jesus was alone on land. He saw that they were in serious trouble, rowing hard and struggling against the wind and waves. About three o’clock in the morning Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. He intended to go past them, but when they saw him walking on the water, they cried out in terror, thinking he was a ghost. They were all terrified when they saw him. But Jesus spoke to them at once. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said. ‘Take courage! I am here!'” (NLT).

The thing that stuck out was where it says that He (Jesus) intended to go past them.  That seemed pretty odd to me. Why, if he saw that they were in trouble, would he walk out there just to go by them? I read a couple of different translations and even a few commentaries to see what that was about. Some veered toward the idea that just like how God passed by Moses to reveal His glory (see Exodus 33), Jesus was revealing His glory. Others didn’t say much about it and seemed to not have a solid answer. The idea of revealing His glory sounds reasonable, however, I had a bit of a different train of thought. Maybe, Jesus wanted for them to ask for his help. So often throughout the gospels Jesus did not perform a miracle until he was asked. He even went so far as to ask the man at the pool of Bethesda if he wanted to be made well (see John 5). 

When Jesus teaches us how to pray he has this to say:

“And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead?  Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” Luke 11:9-13 NLT

So, if you are in need, why in the world wouldn’t you cry out just like the disciples did in the midst of the storm? Sometimes all you have to do is ask!

Along with a few women I work with, I recently started going through Priscilla Shirer’s study, Discerning the Voice of God. In the very first session she said something that has really stuck with me. She was telling the story of Naaman from 2 Kings 5. He was the commander of the army, but he had leprosy. Most of the times we hear of leprosy throughout the Bible we read of people living in seclusion, excluded from society, and considered unclean. However, Naaman was none of those things. He was a fully functional leper. The disease had not fully ravaged his body.

Since then, I have thought about how many of us are functional lepers. Maybe we are able to keep our lesions covered by putting a good face forward or not letting down our guard too much. Perhaps most people don’t even know that we are covered in leprosy under our nice clothes. Underneath all the covering though, is a disease that is destined to take us down. Maybe it is a physical disease, but more likely it is something spiritual or emotional. Maybe we put on a good front, but inside we have been thinking about leaving our spouse. Or maybe our teenager is running around with a bad crowd, and we have no idea how to stop it. Possibly we are living what appears to be an ideal life from the outside, dream home, nice cars, latest technology, but behind closed doors we are in debt over our head and are one missed payment away from repossession on our precious toys. You never know what is going on behind the scenes in someone’s life.

One of the worst things we can do as Christians is to live hiding behind a facade. Not only is it an awful witness to others, but internally it is so damaging to our relationship with God. If we can’t be true to who we are, we will never move to the next level in our faith. So many people go to church every single week and put their best foot forward on Sunday morning, but live like hell during the rest of week. Spiritually they are dead inside. Jesus called people like that “whitewashed tombs”.  The religious people of His day who went to the the temple whenever the doors were open, were often the same people that He avoided.

On the other end of the spectrum are people who know and admit their faults. These are people who have a tremendous ministry to others because they aren’t afraid to be real about who they are. Some of the most influential Christians for me personally are not the ones who pretend to be perfect. Instead, I am more drawn to people who can have real conversations about their struggles. They are people who you feel safe letting down your own guard.  I pray that I am that kind of person to others. I don’t ever want people to see someone fake when they look at my life. Although, I know I am far from the perfect witness of my faith, I pray that others are drawn to God, not pushed away.

So, rather than simply settling on being a functional leper, let’s all do what Naaman finally did. Let’s seek out true healing from God. Let Him heal those spots of our lives that we try to cover. We will be much more effective in our lives if we don’t have to hide parts of our lives from others.

Sometimes we get so involved in our lives and the stresses of what we are currently dealing with that we fail to realize how finite our lives on this earth really are.  Over the last few years, the reality of how short life is has been burning in my mind.  A little over a year ago, pretty early on a Sunday morning, my husband received a phone call that neither he nor I ever expected, and definitely did not want.  A dear friend and former coworker of ours had passed away tragically.  The news was crushing, particularly to my husband who had coached and worked closely with him for many years. Even after moving to another school district, they had stayed in touch.  This man was an incredible figure in the community.  Although he was only 30, his influence far outstretched his years.  Seeing the outpouring of love from the community was nothing short of humbling.  In the days that followed, the people he had touched demonstrated their great love for him in many ways. Students filled the road where he was killed with his favorite drink, Dr. Pepper. People wrote letters, had several candlelight vigils, and mourned deeply. The community will forever be changed.  His funeral was very touching and it was incredible to see how many people he had influenced with his unwavering faith in God.

In the year since that time, I have done a lot of thinking.  Although he probably did not realize the scope of his influence, he left an incredible legacy.  I know as a 30-something myself, I often take for granted that I will have many more years on this earth.  However, none of us knows the number of our days.  His tragic death has reminded me how tender life is and how vitally important it is to live life to the fullest every single day.

I was reminded of that fact again today. I learned of a high school classmate and friend who’s 3 year struggle with cancer ended when she passed away early this morning. My heart is breaking for her family. Although we haven’t seen each other in years, through social media, I have been able to keep up with her battle with cancer. It is absolutely devastating learning of someone so young, with 2 young boys, having her life come to an end. It makes no sense. However, through all of her struggles she has inspired hundreds of people. Her sense of determination and drive to live life to the fullest is absolutely apparent. I can only hope to leave a legacy as strong as the one she has left.

Wow.  This verse makes it plain that we don’t know what the future will hold for us.  We can plan ahead and have goals and dreams, but ultimately God is in control.  We must not brag about ourselves or what we are doing or going to do because God is the one who gives us those abilities and blessings.  “We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” Proverbs 16:9 NLT.  We must take life a day at a time and focus on the one who’s opinion really matters; God himself. I know in my own life, when I trust God rather than myself, I am always blessed.

My biggest prayer right now is that I will allow God to direct my steps.  I want to be strong in my faith.  I want to leave a Godly legacy.  I am deeply saddened by the loss of another friend.  But I am so blessed knowing that she left a legacy so strong that hundreds of people saw the hands and feet of Jesus through her.  I want my legacy to be one where people see the work of God in every single facet of my life.  That is our highest calling for our time here on earth.  “The LORD knows the days of the blameless, and their heritage will remain forever” Psalm 37:18 ESV.  I pray that I don’t waste the days I have been given.  Whether I am instilling Godly principles into my children during this season, or demonstrating my faith in action through the way I live every day, my goal (and yours) should be to leave a lasting legacy.