Sometimes life is just overwhelming. Not in a falling apart kind of way but in an “I just don’t know how to put one foot in front of the other today” kind of way. You know it will get better, you know you will indeed make it, but it’s just all a bit much.
I reached that point at about 1:30 am two nights ago when I had only been asleep for an hour and I heard the sheep like cries of my four week old son. I stumbled into his room fed him and cried wondering how on earth I was going to make it through the next day. I knew the toddler in the next room would not wake up and tell me that “the bags under my eyes looked pretty bad and I should probably go back to sleep while she played quietly in her room.” So I cried because it just seemed too much at 1am when I hadn’t gotten more than a few intervals of sleep in four weeks and my body was still adjusting to not being pregnant. I cried because I was holding a precious gift in my arms but my selfish self just wanted a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. Luckily years of chronic insomnia had prepared me pretty well for the perils of motherhood but we all have our breaking points.
So I did the only thing I know to do at one am when life is just life and it’s not bad, in fact it’s beautiful, but you’ve forgotten that. I asked for his grace to make it through tomorrow (and I thanked him my in laws were in town to help). Because it’s ok to need his daily grace when nothing is particularly horrible but you are just exhausted. The grace that gives us the patience to love when we want to snap, to reach out when we want to hole up, and the grace to see the beauty in even hard circumstances. I begged him for his unyielding love that could pour over me even when I was being selfish. I asked for the endurance to keep going because sometimes you just have to keep moving and when I don’t know how that will happen I beg the one who has put my feet on the right path over and over again.
I debating sharing this little saga with you but I figure someone else needs to know that its OK if you need an extra dose of his grace even when your circumstances aren’t as bad as someone you know, or if you like me you just need to be reminded that even great gifts require hard work. Sometimes we just need to free ourselves up to cry a few tears then put our big girl pants on and keep going. It doesn’t make us less than it makes us human, which is just something we aren’t getting out of. So whatever your reasons are for needing his grace today, embrace it and relish in the fact that it’s just fine to need it.
2 Corinthians 12:9
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
Katie Smith - As always, your blogs (and book as well) continue to inspire me to deepen my relationship with my Maker. Today, yours words and musings spoke straight into what God is doing in my life currently. Thanks for being someone to look up to! 🙂
Anne Kerr - How well I remember those silent tears in the quiet night. I would walk my little one and offer tired prayers for him or her. CS Lewis taught me that since God is outside the realm of time, those prayers we offered years ago still ring in His ears, as fresh as when we first uttered them. Love seeing how you show is to be real is to be beautiful. Hope you get some good rest this week!
Elizabeth - Dear Tindell,
You wrote the most amazing and inspiring book. I am so grateful to you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I pray for you! Also, my church played one of you brother’s songs, “Always”. Such a beautiful song. When the artists name came up, I almost screamed, “Mom, Kristian Stanfill, that’s Tindell Baldwin’s brother!” God’s blessings on you, your family, and your little one.