I was feeling guilty again yesterday. I had a mess of kid art supplies stashed on top of a cabinet, boxes and egg cartons saved for crafts and thrown into a small closet. For weeks I told myself I was going to clean up and organize them. At this point it was becoming deadly to attempt to take anything off the cabinet, lest an avalanche of kid art and glue and crayons come crashing down on you.
I was finally getting to it, so why the guilt?
I was embarrassed at the state of the mess, that I didn’t have it all together, and that it took me so long to get around to cleaning it up.
And…{yes, more guilt}
I was taking the hour before dinner to finally get to it. Shouldn’t I be finishing up dinner? Yeah…it’s a crockpot meal, I told myself, but I still have some dishes to do and a veggie to cook up and right now the table and floor are covered in paper and boxes and crayons. The floor still needs sweeping.
Guilt. Guilt for getting stuff done. Guilt for not getting stuff done “the right way.”
Monday was the same. I was feeling lonely and unmotivated. My house was a mess, stuff littered our small apartment–nearly every small surface covered, the floors needed to be swept, the kids wanted to be played with (I wasn’t feeling it), and dinner still needed cooking. I felt like I needed to go into Superwoman mode, pull myself up by my bootstraps and get it all done.
It’s always these times when all my failings and every lacking comes pouring over me and I try my best to drudge them up and shove them into a bag dragging behind me.
Somehow, I tell myself, somehow I’ve got to figure out how to get it all done. I’ve to prove I’m not lazy or a waste of time.
I lamented on Facebook:
Why do we think beating ourselves up over something will make it all better? Like degrading our self is some kind of payment.
Can I tell you? This is the story of my life. My law-leaning, just give me a plan and steps to follow heart still feels the need to pay for my lacking, my failures.
And I lamented to my husband, Nothing will ever really be done and the mess never tamed.
{do you know how utterly defeating that feels for a perfectionist?}
He texted back,
Yeah. Life is a great big unfinished messiness. And then you die. But at least we have a Hope that soars above the messiness. A coattail to latch onto and be taken up into joy.
And I cried.
How often I forget of Jesus.
Back to Tuesday. Guilt. The kids needed help cleaning up their toys, dinner still needed its finishing touches, and I was ankle too deep in arts and crafts to turn around. I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m neglecting my children. I’m not living up to my duties of homemaker. I’ve wasted my day. I’ll never catch up. I’ll never be good enough.
And somewhere between the self talk and walking the two steps between the bedroom and living room I remembered what my husband said, We have a joy. I remembered all the times he’s reminded me and told me over and over again, “I don’t love you, because of what you can do or not do. I love you, because you’re you and you’re mine.”
For some reason, I hold onto the archaic thought all must be clean, Better Homes & Garden presentable, I must be showered and dressed, and dinner finished by the time my husband gets home.
I grew up believing your worth is in what you do, your acceptance based on how well you perform. I lived my life in that strait. This grace is still new to me. I’m still unlearning my old ways.
Even now, I feel guilty that my kids are watching tv and I’m writing this post. Doesn’t matter that it’s only 10 o’clock and everyone’s been fed, dishes washed or that we’ve painted, colored, and played playdough. Grace.
I still need to preach to myself the same message, I am okay. What I do or don’t do doesn’t define me. I do not need to pay for my failings or my lackings. Jesus has paid it all. The debt doesn’t fall on me.
And these homemaking and childrearing guilts? What do they do but heap more guilt? There is no freedom is washing in my weakness, unless that weakness is leaning on Christ.
Self-pity, self-degradation leave no room for hope and joy. Listing every way I feel I’ve failed distracts my eyes from truth that all my failings are forgiven and the only way to rise above the guilt is to cling onto the coattail of the One who saves.
Keep saying it. Put it on repeat. Whisper to yourself in the darkness, The work is done.
The love of Jesus has no conditions. It cannot be earned. It’s free. It’s always been free. You can’t perform enough to earn it.
Jesus beckons, Come near, enter into my peace, my love. Rest, child. Rest alongside my righteous hand. There is no guilt in me. I’ve paid it all.
Believe it. Even if you must write it on your hands, keep it on your tongue. He hears the cry of the broken and He answers.
Not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy law’s commands;
Could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone; thou must save, and thou alone.
There is glory in the slow passing of time. Patience runs quick and shallow under the hollow earth; flowing swift, then at once colliding!—the roots of necessity. Fervor for efficiency and perfection give way to soul shaping, the weight of eternity’s calling careening waters. We meet at this slow place.
The wind blows and we name shapes in the clouds. I twist flowers into a crown…fingers remembering the long lost art. She wears it like a daughter should. Laughing. Proud. Free. I make a mental note to write her a letter to remind her to always be this way. Peaceful. Content. A grace.
These days I bottle. Saving graces and glimpses of beauty, discovery, joy. I save them for days when breath is fleeting and chaos reigns and all my failures evident.
