The Worth Of Knowing

The kind of life that makes one feel empty and shallow and superficial, that makes one dread to read and dread to think, can’t be good for one, can it? It can’t be the kind of life one was meant to live.” – Willa Cather

I pulled my copy of Humble Roots by Hannah Anderson off the shelf. It always meets me where I’m at – maybe because I’m in the same place a lot: overwhelmed and weary and disappointed by my own limitations.

But today the above quote that Hannah places at the beginning of chapter 1 struck me for the first time.

I’ve been busy and concerned with so many good things since the birth of our third child. And I initially felt I was handling it so well, but overwhelm slowly crept in. I tried to ignore it, to keep moving, to find ways to take “breaks” without really letting myself stop and think and read and write. And it’s all caught up to me.

Even as I powered through emotionally, my body put up all it’s red flags until I’ve more or less been forced to stop and let the “shoulds” pile up along with the dishes in the sink.

And, truly, this is what I need on so many levels – not the dishes in the sink, but the slowing down.

Motherhood – no, any relationship – is such a tug of war for me. A war between wanting to be needed vs wanting to not be needed, but welcomed anyway.

It’s a tug of war between caring so deeply and wanting to be appreciated vs being overwhelmed by the amount of need, the amount of times I disappoint, the amount of my inadiquacy.

And then it’s also hard to be asked about good events and opportunities and to let people down not because I have other plans but because I don’t have the bandwidth. It’s hard to shake the worries of what people will think.

Ah, pride, there it is … disguised as worrying about disappointing and being misunderstood by others.

“We must never forget,” Hannah writes, “that looking like God does not mean that we are God. We are made in His image, but we are made nonetheless.”

I am not God. My humanness is not sinful.

I can’t fill my kids’ every desire – even the good ones.

I pray that somehow my inadequacies point my kids and others to Jesus’ sufficiency.

I’ve been reading a bit of Wendell Berry’s Sabbath poems in the last week or two. His Sabbath poem 1979 III is one I’ve reread several times. I want to pursue growth within my “proper measure” – a life that grows deep and flourishes within my limitations.

And I really hope it includes more reading, thinking, writing and reflecting the joy of my Creator.