Today

“O my soul, bless God. From head to toe, I’ll bless his holy name! O my soul, bless God, don’t forget a single blessing” (Psalm 103:1-2, The Message)! 

Today I made precut pumpkin cookies with my four year old daughter. Hannajean was in charge of pushing out the shapes and arranging them on a baking sheet. In her exuberance to be creative, she starting giving the pumpkins hair and hats with bits of leftover dough. I got in on the action by decorating my own pumpkin with a huge tongue coming out of its orange mouth. It was, I must confess, the most popular cookie.

Today I read “Harry the Dirty Dog” to my two year daughter, Lucy. Several times. “Want Harry again, ” she would inform me as we lay on my bed with the tv off and her siblings occupied upstairs. In between readings, I would pretend to eat her toes. This, of course, inspired much giggling.

Today I took a bath and (hallelujah!) shaved my legs so that when I snuggle on the bed with my husband I will feel sort of attractive. Today I also spent over an hour on the phone with my best friend catching up since she got back in town from her vacation.  Today I read a book by myself for a half hour.

Today I also kept up the house and prepared meals and spent about an hour on the computer checking email and working on some things for church (okay, exactly an hour – because I have a timelock on my computer so that I can’t spend more than an hour online each day…some people have internal boundaries, I still need the external structure to help me live out my priorities – as embarrasing as that can be to admit).

In the middle of my cookie-making, I got hit with a tremendous wave a guilt. All of a sudden, I thought back over my day and realized I hadn’t accomplished enough. And that in fact, my worst fear was true – I am not doing enough.

It really rocked me emotionally…for about two minutes. Then I felt this peace from the Lord descend over my heart as I realized the truth about my day.

My day was wonderful. My day was led by God. Spending time making cookies and reading “Harry” was His plan for my day. And I didn’t actually have the time to do much else. Pouring love and affection into my daughters took a lot of my time today. That’s what I did. It was EXACTLY what He called me to do.

I believe that the Lord wants me to stop believing the lie that I can fit in many, many things in a day around mothering my children. I do this because I compare myself to women I have read about or seen from a distance (a distance, because up close everyone becomes clearer) and I worry that I must DO MORE to be who He is calling me to be in this season.

But the things He calls me to do will likely involve a lot more cookie-making and times on the bed with my growing-so-fast toddler. It will involve more saying “no” to commitments and “yes” to the gift of thirty minutes of reading a book to nourish my spirit. And I can learn to trust this calling as I have learned to trust Him hundreds of times before.

He has always been faithful, and He was faithful today.