To The Parents In This Season
Precisely two months after I decided to become a stay-at-home mom, the shelter in place order was issued. That meant my idealistic plans of library trips, Chick-fil-a play dates, Target dollar spot runs, and mornings at the park were laid to rest, including fifteen hours a week of preschool for Cyrus. I’m so thankful I listened to that inner tugging to devote my time to my boys at the beginning of the year, otherwise I would have undoubtedly gone mad trying to juggle work and kids during the quarantine.
These past few months have been both good and hard. My motherhood “immersion” has been a bit of baptism by fire as I navigate the sleepless nights of an infant and the constant demands of a four year old with no social life. Both Matt and my mom have been my saving grace in keeping my sanity in tact. And I recognize what a gift that is.
To my fellow stay-at-home moms and dads—we carry the badge of dark circles under our mascaraless eyes, hungry for interaction with humans who can make their own snacks and wipe their own bottoms. We are desperate for pockets of time to devote to our own mental health, even if it’s in the form of an uninterrupted shower or a quick jog around the block. We are constantly day dreaming about days when we can leave the house and we are forced to get creative in entertaining our stir-crazy kids. Passions have taken a backseat as we commit all of our efforts to helping our children wade these uncertain waters. Bedtime is our end game each day as our check-lists carry over each week with more unticked boxes. We are tired and in a little bit of an identity crisis. Or is it just me?
Grace is both the strength to conquer everything placed in front of you, and the hand that pulls you up when you inevitably falter.
To the working moms and dads—you perhaps have had it the hardest. You sit in on Zoom meetings and respond to emails with one hand while tossing cheerios to your hangry toddler with the other. You’re now being forced to homeschool your kids, but you don’t have the luxury of devoting hours of your time to research and best methods. You are simultaneously your kids’ only friend, an employee, a spouse, and the keeper of the house. At any given moment, you are teaching long division, warming bottles, taking calls, making the grocery list, changing out laundry, and trying to squeeze in a quick non-work related conversation with your spouse. You are essentially super heroes. Unfortunately, many of you are feeling run-down, wrung-out, and like you are constantly disappointing someone in your life. You’re stretched thin and there’s only so much of you to give.
If grace feels like an intangible, abstract ideal to any of you at this moment, let me offer a reminder of what it really means.
Grace is both the strength to conquer everything placed in front of you, and the hand that pulls you up when you inevitably falter. It’s the deep exhale of surrender after carrying around the weight of the world’s problems in your shoulders all day. It says I don’t expect perfection, only humility in imperfect moments. It reminds you that it’s ok if your child has fallen a bit behind in a certain subject; there is plenty of time to catch up. You will be faced with hard decisions, and you won’t always make the right ones, but grace says there is nothing the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ cannot repair. You will fail your child or your spouse or your neighbor, but grace reminds you that there is very little a good hug and a heart-felt ‘I was wrong’ won’t mend. Grace reminds us of what’s most important when we have the tendency to carry every burden laid on us with equal weight. It helps us to count the cost and invest our efforts into an eternal mindset as we let the less important things fall away.
And the very best part of grace: it’s not a skein of yarn unraveling throughout the day until it reaches the end. It gives and gives and gives, and its bank is never depleted. There’s always more for the taking, and my prayer is that you take unselfishly as much as you need without a moment’s hesitation. I hope, despite the circumstances of this season, grace reminds you that you are not alone in your struggles. It is the thread that weaves humanity together toward compassion and kindness. And that kindness must begin with ourselves.
