Under Pressure

Picture this:

Your friend, your church member, the "preachers wife", in the bathroom leaning on the counter, head between her hands, crying out to God "help me God because I don't know what to do", while her beautiful 3 year old is crying and throwing a tantrum in the next room.  If this were a game a jeopardy, you would now hit your button and say "Who is Katie Freeman?" 

I don't know about anyone else but as a mom, wife, child of God and preachers wife I feel this pressure to "have it all together".  This is not because anyone has every told me I need do.  It is not because there is a scripture in First Opinions chapter 1 that says "Thou shalt be the perfect wife and mother and never make any mistakes".  But I would venture a guess that I am not alone in this striving for perfection.  Why as mothers do we put this pressure on ourselves to be perfect, and to make everyone else think we are perfect?

2 Corinthians 12:9-11 says:

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. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

If God, the creator of the universe, tells us that we should delight in weakness, why do we spend so much time trying to cover them up?  

Back to this morning.  My daughter woke up emotional and any attempt to do school work resulted in one emotional breakdown after another.  Toys were thrown, there was yelling and wall hitting, all the while I was trying to "handle it" in all my infinite wisdom (yes, you can laugh).  I tried every disciplinary tactic I knew: time out, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and yes, spanking.  This went on for close to an hour, and at the end of my emotional rope, this is where you find me removing myself from the situation, head in hands, crying out to God for help in my weakness.  Next thing I know my beautiful daughter allows me to scoop her into my lap and arms on the floor, her head on my chest, and me rubbing her back as she calms down and says "Mommy, I'm sorry for making poor choices".  
Talk about a sigh of relief.  In my weakness, he is strong!  By giving it to him, we were both able to humble ourselves instead of having a power struggle.  What an amazing feeling to know that I don't have to try to handle it all on my own!  Praise God!  

Talk about feeling the pressure being lifted off of my shoulders.  It is not easy for me to show my vulnerability because society tells us that if we show our weaknesses they can be used against us, but God tells us that our difficulties and weaknesses strengthen us when we allow him to work through us.  

I hope that we as women will allow ourselves to take that pressure to be perfect and have it all together off of our shoulders and give it to God.  I also pray that we will love and support each other and pray for each other.  

"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith - that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.  Amen" Ephesians 3: 14-20