Wearing All Your Hats Without Wearing Out, 2 of 3
Do you ever feel like you are struggling constantly but never making any progress in your role as a mom? You know motherhood is valuable, but you feel so overwhelmed by all the “hats” you’re supposed to wear, such as cook, chauffeur, and counselor, just to name a few. Moms feel pressure to wear all these hats while modeling the latest SUPER MOM attire, toting around little SUPER KID who must be best at everything he participates in, and he participates in pretty much EVERYTHING because, after all, he is SUPER KID! How do we stop the insanity?! In part one of “Wearing All Your Hats Without Wearing Out” I told you about our enemy, Satan (a liar and deceiver), who aims to destroy our families. Just like he tempted Jesus in the desert, the Devil loves to tell a mom that she must be SUPER MOM or else she will be FAILURE MOM. So moms do their very best to wear all of those hats that seem IMPOSSIBLE to wear and wind up feeling defeated by all the pressure.
If we mothers are not supposed to do everything, how do we figure out what we are supposed to do. I have identified four main hats that a mom should wear and I’d like to share them a with you: Master Gardener, Manager of the Monkeys (and I don’t mean your kids), Visionary, and Barometer.
MASTER GARDENER Hat
The truth that our enemy doesn’t want us to think about is that we as moms are not supposed to be chasing the supposedly ideal Super Mom. A main hat that God wants moms to wear is the hat of Master Gardener, for, instead of running on a hamster wheel, we are to be tending a garden. This garden is growing the most priceless of plants – our children. Gardeners know that much hard work is necessary before we see results, but the gardener does all of this because of her love for the plants and the anticipation of the beautiful springtime blossoms to come.
When I think of my children’s futures, what does their “life in bloom” look like? For me, I see it as a time when all their abilities, experiences, and passions come together to display God’s glory through them as they pursue God’s specific-fashioned will for their individual life. That image will take many years to come to fruition. That’s their life in bloom and that’s why I tend the garden, working to help them have strong souls, minds, and bodies that are someday going to be a fascinating masterpiece, a collage of God’s intricate involvement in their lives. It is not going to necessarily look great today – the soil is dirty, the sun is hot, there are some weeds to take out, some pests to purge, and even some pruning to do before the beautiful blooms come.
How’s your patience? Because if you want the best kinds of blooms – the ones that really last, with large beautiful petals, it’s going to require patience and consistency. When my seven kiddos were all little and I was so tired and overwhelmed, I would muster up the energy to train them AGAIN on how to handle the current squabble or dispute between them, or I’d reluctantly give consequences for not following through with a task AGAIN. I would wonder if taking this time on their character was really worth it. Now that most of them are grown, I see their lives and characters flourishing and it makes me so thankful that we made their character development a top priority.
All plants have some basic needs that should be consistently met – providing sunlight, water, and soil while giving protection from weather and harmful pests. If we overdue any of the essentials, our treasured plants start to die: too much sunlight, they wither; too much water, they rot; too deep in the soil and they can’t sprout. In general, moms these days feel an obligation to overdo everything with our kids rather than giving them enough. As a gardener, we need to give our plants enough, not too little and not too much.
Satan wants us to believe that we should give our kids too much – do everything for them, give them everything, make them the very best at everything (there’s a difference between doing things with excellence in a balanced life and winning all categories at the cost of our family’s sanity and peace). Until the plants (our children) are strong enough to withstand the environment on their own, we need to provide protection from inclement weather while also eliminating choking weeds and unwanted pests. Mother gardeners are protecting our children from destructive elements until their roots are deep and their trunks are stout enough to withstand the harmful elements of the world.
As we grow our gardens, moms don’t want to be just any old gardener. We want to be Master Gardeners (and by Master I mean that we look to the Master, our Lord Jesus) to see how best to raise these priceless plants under our care. We read about how the Master told us to handle life in His word, we listen for the voice of the Master who is giving us specific direction for our day, and we implement changes in our lives to align with Him).
Jesus, our example for living abundantly in all areas, is even an example to us in the reality that not all things are to get done: The crowds were following Jesus, wanting Him to heal them and teach them. Pretty soon He chose to get in a boat to get some distance from the crowd and He even took a nap! (Mark 4:38) Sure, he cared about the crowds and He wanted to meet the people’s needs, but He also knew there was only so much that He was intended to do at that moment. Another time, when his mother asked Him to change the water into wine at the wedding feast, he did do what she asked but He also told her that it wasn’t the right time for Him to be doing miracles yet (John 2:4). Similarly, he scolded the disciples when they fussed at the woman who poured expensive perfume on His feet when He said, “the poor you will always have with you, but you will only have me for a little while” (John 12:3).