I Don't Know What I'm Doing

I just turned 34. We had a great family day together on my birthday. Josh surprised me by taking the day off, we went out for an awesome breakfast, and we drove into the city for a day at the zoo. The kids presented me with special homemade gifts they'd been working on for days, and I finally got to watch the season finale of "Parenthood." I thought about how incredibly kind God has been to give me this family of mine and I wondered how in the world I suddenly turned 34 when I still feel like a kid. That's the happy stuff of the day.

But you know what else went on during my birthday? I thought about how half the time, I don't know what I'm doing.  I don't. You know...as a wife, as a mom, as a friend.  (Can you have a midlife crisis at age 34? If so, I may have had a mini-one in my brain on my birthday.) Half the time I really just feel like I am falling flat on my face. I don't mean as in "woe is me, I am such a failure" but as in, "I want to do this well but I'm pretty sure I'm not" kind of thing.

34 years and I often wake up feeling a bit disoriented. Four little lives depend on me each day for food and hugs and education; I want to love them better than I am. What about my marriage? What would that zealous 20-something me say if she saw me as the wife I am now? I want to help and encourage and support my husband but I still get cranky and critical and difficult to live with some days. And what about my friendships? I want to love whole-heartedly and build relationships the way Jesus would want me to. But how do I do that while still faithfully pouring out my time and heart to be a devoted wife and mama? I don't know. A lot of the time I really just feel like I don't know what I'm doing. It can feel disorienting and frustrating because I want to walk around feeling like, "It's good. I've got this," while I'm really feeling like, "What in the world am I doing? How do I do this better?"

But maybe I feel like I don't know what I'm doing because I don't. And maybe no one does? There's a lot I don't know. I don't know how to be a perfect wife. I don't know how to be a perfect mom. I don't know how to be a perfect friend. I don't know what I'm doing half the time. But I do know the One who always knows exactly what He's doing. He is perfect and He is enough.

God knows exactly what He's doing with me. He knows exactly what He's doing through my feeble attempts to love my husband well. He knows exactly what He's doing through my messy day-to-day flawed mama-ing of four precious people I get to call my kids. He knows what He's doing in my less than stellar moments as a busy friend. He knows what He's doing through me. He's got it all together. He knows that I don't. And He loves me even in my sinful, messed-upness.

So I've decided that's what I'm going to fight to preach to myself this year-that He knows what He's doing even though I don't. I want to be at rest in His sufficiency.