16 Aug To The Mom Whose Heart is Overwhelmed

Have you ever felt the urge to lock yourself in your room with a box of Oreos, never to emerge again? Has the sheer noise and chaos of your home caused you to want to spend 5 extra minutes alone in the bathroom, just to get some personal space?

Have you finally put your head on your pillow at night with your mind swimming, unable to rest as you think about all the emails you didn’t reply to and the lunches you still need to pack?

If any of these scenarios ring a bell, you are not alone.

Being a mom requires juggling the needs of  your little people, menu planning, extracurricular sports and activities, homework or schoolwork, and most importantly – pouring lots of love and care into their little hearts to help them grow up to be confident and resilient adults.

Whew! Just writing all that is tiring. And doing it is hard work.

 When Your Heart is Overwhelmed

Often, life begins to overwhelm us in drips, not crashing waves.

The money isn’t there to pay this bill – drip.

Your child is not enjoying school this year – drip.

You and your spouse can’t seem to see eye to eye this week – drip.

The car breaks down – again – drip.

You just finished hosting guests for two weeks and find out your husband has to leave on a business trip tomorrow – drip.

I’m realizing something the longer I walk through life – I am a normal human which means that I am weak and fallible and sometimes get seriously overwhelmed – and that’s okay. Because God can handle my overwhelm.

Clinging to the Rock

My 37th birthday was last week. Instead of celebrating and enjoying the day, I wound up in an Urgent Care clinic due to going into anaphylactic shock from a wasp sting on my face.

A prednisone shot and a strong dose of self-pity later, I was a hot mess. I excused myself from my family and drove to a nearby park where I sat in my car alone with tears pouring out in an uncontrollable flood of emotion. In that moment I cried out to God, “Lord, I feel so overwhelmed – please help me!“

And quietly, God’s Spirit whispered this truth to me: “You may be unstable, but I am a rock. I am solid, sure, true, and unchanging. Lean all the weights and burdens that overwhelm you onto my shoulders. I can carry them.“

Friend, this changes everything – this perspective that we are never meant to be supermoms but we serve a Super God. Our strength is limited but his strength is limitless.

Our energy and mood may ebb and flow but His is steady, consistent, enduring, triumphant.

We will all have moments that overwhelm us in this mom-life – but when the drips turn into a flood and the waves comes crashing down, we don’t have to come at it with our fists flailing in a futile attempt to control the uncontrollable; Rather, we can cling to the Rock that will support us until the floods subside.

Jesus is our Rock, says Psalm 18 and Psalm 61:1-2

When you feel that you can’t take even one more breath without inhaling water instead of good, clean oxygen –

when you would rather hide under the sheets instead of face the day with a brave heart of rejoicing –

It’s time to regain this perspective of God My Rock – to lift your eyes to Jesus and your hand to His Spirit and let them lead you to the Rock that is Higher than you and the problems that surround you.

Because when you stand on Christ, the waves still beat strong, but they roll off onto Him, caress the shore, and return once again to the ocean of life where they belong…

…and you are left standing with your feet dry – watching as worries are swept away,

looking down upon delays, headaches, mistakes, and yes, even pure chaos from a different view:

A God-ward view;

A view from your place with Him on the Rock.