In our weakness

It's Friday. For me, Fridays are heavenly because three of my girls head off to Friday School at our homeschool enrichment program. Normally, I would be grocery shopping right now with my sweet AddieBoo. Two year olds can stay entertained when you strap them in a cart and hand them an iPod. It's lovely. But we are home, in our pajamas and watching Miss Spider. Addie is smooshed next to me in 'my' chair, playing with my hair and sucking in her finger - two habits we want to break.

But I'm tired.
Are you tired?

Yesterday, apart from the normal homeschool-chores-housework-cooking routine I also drove to the bank and then broke down at the bank. Not in tears, I mean my truck. Broke down. In the middle of the center drive thru lane. Awe-some. Two tow truck companies and a ride home from a guy I barely know later, I was tired. So tired, in fact, that I stole the remote from my husband so I could watch What Not To Wear. It was probably kinda mean but I was too tired to care.

The day before that the drama was so overwhelming in my house that only by the prompting of the Holy Spirit did I remember to pray as I was walking down the hall to deal with the latest round of door slams and emotions.

This morning, I was finishing up the morning sweeping and thinking of something witty to Tweet. There's a lot of sand in my yard which means a lot of sand in my house so sweeping the floors seems pretty awesome to me. And don't you all need to know that I am awesome? Thank God that I first clicked on the link for the Weary Mom study. Just before I tweeted about my awesome feat of sweeping the floors, I got a beautiful reminder that God is the only awesome thing around here and I need Him so much.

God doesn't ask me to boast about my awesomeness, He asks me to boast in my weakness.

So Weary Mom, are you weak today? Are you tired? Are you overwhelmed? Tell the Lord, ask for His help, ask for a friend to hold up your arms.

He does listen and He will hear you..

This isn't a competition for who is the bigger mess, but it is time to be honest and say 'I am not perfect, I am weak and tired, I need Jesus. I need women who love Jesus to encourage me.' Sometimes it seems like I'm the only one that doesn't have perfectly clean bathrooms and obedient children with cherub-like attitudes. The desire to look like that perfect mom is so strong. But the desire to be like Jesus has to be stronger.

No one is perfect. I'm certainly not. That's why we need Jesus. Let's hold one another up, trusting God to fill in the gaps of our imperfection and make these lives something beautiful for His Glory.

So if you're weary, be encouraged that you aren't the only one. Find a friend, lock yourself in the bathroom to pray without interruption, know that in your weakness - He is strong.