May Asks You to Perform. God Doesn't.

Happy Friday, friends!

I hope your week held more mercies than messes, but if not, grab that cup of coffee (or glass of wine if it’s evening) and settle in for our weekly chat.

Can we just take a collective deep breath and acknowledge something together? May is a lot.

The calendar that somehow said yes to everything. The end-of-year parties that need a snack, a gift, and apparently a color-coordinated table setup. The teacher appreciation week that snuck up on you. The sports banquets, the field trips, and the endless dress-up days. The to-do list keeps growing, no matter how many things you cross off.

And here is the thing about a full calendar and a long to-do list: it doesn’t just stay in your planner. It spills. Into your patience, into your sleep, into your relationships, and if we aren’t careful, straight into our spiritual lives too.

Because when everything around us feels performative, we start bringing that same energy to God. And sometimes we end up treating our faith like one more thing on the list we aren’t doing well enough.

But this week I want to sit with you in the middle of the mayhem and point us both back to something that I think is going to take the pressure off… at least when we are with Him.

Let’s dig in.

• May’s Monthly Mood board is here, and it is all about grieving the growing. We are leaning into the fact that May comes with so many emotions as our little people transition from one season to another. There are also a couple of book recs and some Summer staples sprinkled in!

• Last week’s Faithful Friday was also about this transitional phase of Motherhood. Read: They Don’t Need You Less. They Need You Diffrently here.

i get overwhelmed sometimes by Abbie Gamboa, UPPERROOM

Stop, take a breath

It’ll be alright

Just me, no more or less

Is all that you require

…

I get overwhelmed sometimes

But every time, your love reminds me

That you’re never hard to find

You’re in every moment, waiting

Even when I start to strive

Living in your love is easy.

In May, I am constantly performing: How can I make this teacher gift cuter than last year’s? How many things can I volunteer for by the end of the year? Do I have everything checked off the list?

My mind becomes a swirling disaster of bigger, better, more…

And what I need, what I really need, is a reminder to stop, breathe, and put things back into perspective. When I am deep in Super Mom mode, that is nearly impossible to do on my own.

But then this line blared through my speakers the other morning: “Just me, no more or less, is all that You require.” My muscles relax. My breathing slows because it is a reminder that there is one place I never have to perform.

When the pressure to be more starts bleeding into our time with God, this song is our invitation to lay it all down before we even begin. He doesn’t require a supercharged version of ourselves. He only requires our hearts.

And how refreshing is that this time of year?!

This verse has a way of making us think the “patterns of this world” are the obvious ones: greed, gossip, or whatever the politicians are pushing these days.

But the patterns of this world are not always obviously sinful choices. Sometimes they just look like letting ourselves get pulled into performing, or carrying so many things at once that we stop making time for God.

Sometimes it just looks like May. Doing more, stepping into more than we can handle, and running ourselves ragged so others can see that we are involved and happy about it.

The conforming happens quickly and quietly. And before we know it, we are caught up in a relentless pattern of performing. But who are we performing for? Certainly not God. And if we are honest, maybe not even for our kids or from the good of our hearts.

Paul calls us to move differently through a world that never stops asking more of us. And transformation doesn’t start with doing more. It starts with thinking differently.

We will never be transformed by the demands of this world. Instead, we are transformed and renewed by being close to the One who made us. And He never asks us to perform for Him.

As we spend more time in His presence, we begin to see what it is He is actually calling us into, not what the room mom is calling us into. Don’t hear me wrong: God calls us to serve. But He never calls us to serve from an empty heart or to serve in a performative manner. And the only way our hearts can be truly full or know what He is calling us to do is by returning to Him for renewal and direction

The world has a pattern for May. God has an entirely different invitation.

Even writing my newsletter this week feels performative. I am tired. I look at my calendar for the next week and literally yawn out loud: volunteering for field day, bike parade, pajama day, end-of-year parties… whew, it’s a lot.

And when I lean into something… I usually lean in. I mean, I was signed up to do snacks for Steele’s party, and the theme is a beach party, so naturally, I had to order some mini sand pails and fun tissue paper to create the whole experience.

I know, I do a lot of it to myself. Because I love being a mom to my boys. I love showing up and making them smile. I love showing them that life is worth celebrating and pointing them to God’s good gifts.

But it can still drain the life right out of me… and, embarrassingly true statement, I care what the other moms think of me.

I started to notice that when I opened my devotional each morning, I was rushing through it because I had other things on my agenda. I would make it all the way to 8:00 that night without ever plugging my heart in to be recharged.

So when I heard that Abbie Gamboa song, I almost laughed out loud because I felt it so deeply. I am so overwhelmed that I cannot even give my mind a moment of renewal.

Here was the problem: I was approaching my time with God like another box to check. Plastering a smile on, placing words of praise on my lips, not because I was feeling them but because I thought I was supposed to. Another performance, another May obligation.

But that is not what He is asking for. He invites us to come to Him in whatever form we need to. And what I needed in those moments was not a polished quiet time. It was renewal. It was quiet. It was someone to tell me which way to go.

Performing for the world is exhausting. But performing for God on top of it? That will empty you completely. Coming to Him as you are is the only thing that actually refills you.

Since this entire newsletter has been about how much we have on our plates, I am not going to add a single thing more.

But if you are also craving renewal right now over performance, listen to the song above once a day for the next week.

Maybe it’s in the car. Maybe it’s on a walk. Maybe it’s while you are doing the dishes. All you have to do is press play, allow His presence to meet you right where you are, and watch what He does with the quiet.

He will renew you. That is what He does.

Lord,

We come to You just as we are: overwhelmed, overstimulated, and exhausted.

We won’t hide what we are feeling from You. We won’t come into Your presence wearing a mask of calm when that is not what we are feeling.

Instead, we bring our weary hearts and ask You to do what only You can: renew us, transform us, and lead us into Your will and not the world’s.

We are grateful for the celebrations. But we ask that You help us not drown in them.

Amen.

Until next week, Blair