You are Not Behind

Happy Friday Friends,

I hope your week has 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.

We are back from spring break (big exhale) and jumping back into the swing of things around here. It always takes me a few days to feel like I am back in sync. And as we jump back into life, we are also jumping back into our Busy Season Series, where we are not trying to wrangle or fix the busyness of our lives but instead find God right in the middle of it.

So far, we have focused on staying rooted to God in our busiest seasons of motherhood and allowing ourselves to see the abundance He offers in these wild, full seasons.

This week, I want to gently (and also loudly) tell you something important that the world and social media out there want you to forget: you are not behind.

As you scroll through your Instagram feed and see list after list of what you could be doing to streamline your life, I want you to take a deep breath and remember this truth: you cannot be behind on a timeline He already wrote.

To-go meals prepped in the fridge, a daily laundry system, and a perfectly organized garage are not requirements for living out His story for you in motherhood. They might be helpful. A few might actually work for your family. But do not feed into the lie that you are behind.

Ready to dig in? Let’s go

Exciting news! I’m almost ready to share our full Faith Resource Guide for Boy Moms. Your vote will help decide which section I’ll reveal first. Thank you for helping shape what’s next! Your feedback helps me know what you are looking for!

You Say by Lauren Daigle

I keep fighting voices in my mind

that say I’m not enough.

Every single lie that tells me

I will never measure up

…

Remind me once again just who

I am because I need to know.

We have all been there. Scrolling through social media and stumbling across a mom making dinner out of a portable crockpot for her kids in a parking lot after a baseball game. And before you even realize what is happening, you have labeled yourself a bad mom, because you usually just pull in the Zaxby’s drive-through on the way home.

You click on her video. You start saving her recipes. You decide to buy the crockpot. And there you are, spiraling. Comparing yourself to someone you have never even met.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped turning towards the One who knows us best, the One who placed us in this specific role in our families, who trusts US to raise our children, and started believing the lie that someone else could run our lives better than we could.

In the busy season, especially when things feel rushed and chaotic, and everyone seems to be doing it better than us, we need to ask God to remind us who we are.

This song is that reminder. In a world of constant comparison, finding His voice above all the noise is one of the hardest things we can do. But tuning our hearts to hear it? That is one of the most important.

Press play. Let Him tell you who you are.

So far in this series, we have studied the Greek words for remain and abundance and seen how much deeper we can go when we slow down and focus on specific words from Scripture.

This week, we are looking at the Hebrew word behind formed in this verse: yāṣar.

Yāṣar means to shape, to fashion, to craft purposely and with care. It is the same word used in Genesis 2:7 when God formed man from the dust of the ground, the language of a potter with clay. David is telling us that when God forms our days, He does so with purpose. He does not accidentally assign them to us. He does not just see them coming. His hands were on them, shaping them.

God was not looking at anyone else’s days when He formed yours.

So before you get caught in the comparison loop that sometimes finds us in motherhood… the perfect before-sunrise quiet time you watched someone have on Instagram stories this morning was written for her life. Not necessarily yours.

God fashioned your family differently, your kids, your rhythms, your capacity, on purpose and without mistake. You do not need a lens into someone else’s home to define what feels right in your own.

And Paul takes this even further in the New Testament. He tells us to examine our OWN work, taking pride in what WE do without comparing ourselves to anyone else (Galatians 6:4-5). This is your reminder that you are only responsible for the life God formed for you. Stay the course. Do not be discouraged because something works for another family and not yours.

You are not behind. You are running a completely different race.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how my mom handled things when we were growing up during busier seasons. And maybe I am romanticizing my childhood a little, but I do not remember her with to-go meals for every game or a trunk organizer separated by activity.

It just was not that serious. She did not have 7,000 voices telling her she could do better, that her time could be more optimized.

And it has made me think: we are making this so much harder than it has to be.

God does not call us to a motherhood of striving and running ourselves ragged. He does not need you to be the most organized mom on the block or the one making homemade meals every night of the week. And I have not been able to dig into every verse in the Bible, but I have yet to come across one that tells me to place home organization and meal planning above the real job of motherhood… which is pointing my children toward Him.

Instead, verse after verse tells me to:

• Weave God’s teaching into everyday life (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)

• Take active and intentional leadership in my home (Proverbs 31:26-27)

• Comfort my children just as the Lord comforts me (Isaiah 66:13)

• Love my children and my husband well (Titus 2:4)

• Train up my children in the ways of the Lord (Proverbs 22:6)

• Model and pass down my own faith to them (2 Timothy 1:5)

If you are feeling behind by today’s standards of motherhood, He is not measuring you against your neighbor. He is asking you to be faithful to the task He placed before you.

If your children get a homemade meal today or their uniform is clean and folded, they will be thankful today.

If they hear you tell them God loves them, even when they strike out. If they see you praying at your desk in the morning. If they fall asleep after digging into a devotional with you… They will be thankful for that forever. Those are the things they will hold onto. Not the crockpot meal you pulled out on the way to the field.

Let Him tell you what is required of you today. Not the random girl you follow on the internet.

As I’ve been thinking about copying what other moms do or adopting systems that work for other families, I’ve started noticing the routines we’ve built at home: great for us, but not universal.

Many of my friends laugh at our evening routine. Since my kids were little, most nights they’re bathed and at the table for dinner with us by 6:00, and they’re almost always in bed by 7:30. That might feel early to some people, and I hear questions like, “Don’t you want them outside playing?” or “How are they ready for bed by that time?” The answers are so specific to our family: I do let them play in their pajamas after bathtime in the backyard, but my stress level drops when bedtime is ready before dinner, so there isn’t a mad rush. Our kids are also early risers, up before 6, no matter how late they went to bed. So bedtime is earlier for their sanity and mine.

This is just one example of how family systems aren’t universal. What works for you might not work for someone else. It doesn’t mean we can’t look for advice and borrow parts of another mom’s ideas to help things run more smoothly, but we shouldn’t be discouraged if we have to trash them.

And a little reminder to study you this week: you’re not behind in the story God is writing for your family. His design for your days isn’t a race against anyone else’s clock. You’re moving at the pace that fits your people, and that pace is good.

So here’s your challenge this week: First, look at how God has designed your family, the way He shaped your heart and mind to approach things, and ask Him to help shape your family’s routines. Second, identify one thing that really works well for your family and lean into that.

Let me know in the comments: what’s one routine your family has that wouldn’t work for others?!

Lord,

We feel exhausted by the pressure to be better, to do more in motherhood.

We wake up, we look at our calendars, and we immediately feel behind.

Remind us that what the world expects of mothers and what You expect of mothers are two completely different things.

Prick our hearts when we feel tempted to step onto the treadmill of comparison, striving, and optimization.

And remind us instead that our greatest treasures are the children You have placed in front of us, and that our focus should be on the development of their hearts in relation to You.

Amen.

If you enjoyed today’s Faithful Friday, do me a favor and like or comment below! Your engagement helps me know you are out there and what resonates with each of you! Thank you, friends!

Until next week, Blair