For most of my life, I’ve been as competitive as I have been talkative, and that’s saying something. While my drive isn’t always applied to financial or professional pursuits, there is usually always something that I am deeply passionate about on a short-term or long-term basis. And when I do something, I want to be the best at it or not bother at all.
It’s not exactly a healthy character trait, and my husband would be the first to tell you that I am usually stressed because I involuntarily look for stress all the time. When one project is done, I start sniffing for another. When I am in the middle of something - be it a church project, a writing project, chasing college grades, or even just inventing a game - I can get oddly intense in my quest to get it done as perfectly as I want.
A is for Asian, people joke, but I definitely refuse to accept getting any lower of a grade than an A whenever I choose to pour my heart and soul into something.
And, quite honestly, it’s why reckoning with this new season of motherhood has been a new lesson in humility in a way I never expected.
Some people say you can have it all: career, motherhood, an outstanding marriage, great health, an active social life, financial success, ministerial involvement. Some others acknowledge that you just can’t.
I already thought I was realistic. I’d long accepted that I could at most work part time if and when God gave us children. I knew I needed (and have) lowered standards for how I look or how our house looks or how much time I can spend pursuing my former hobbies like writing, traveling, and painting, and cooking.
What I didn’t expect was to already make multiple sacrifices - and still can’t manage to ace anything.
The twins are wonderful blessings I love with all of my heart - but they frankly don’t get as much organic food, exercise, fashionable outfits, music lessons, bedtime stories, sleep training, screen time limits, educational play, bath time scrubbing, clean sheets, hairstyling, baby massages, fresh air, fresh fruits, and whatnot as they could.
For the first time since marriage, our beddings don’t match and our room is a mess. After cooking regularly for years, I have at most put together five meals since the babies were born.
My memos get sent out the moment they’re written. My conversations with my husband sound more like reports than actual dialogue.
When it comes to work, ministries, and the luxury of a hobby or two, I can at most scramble to do “just enough” to get the minimum done.
Forget getting an A. It takes all the effort I can possibly muster to just get a C, in pretty much everything.
And it frustrates me to no end.
I feel like a mediocre mother, a mediocre teacher, a mediocre wife, and a mediocre everything all at the same time. And with all my days and nights running together, I often feel that there is absolutely no way things can get any better. I want
to do more, and I want to do better.
But it just doesn’t happen.
And it has taken me a while to accept that maybe THAT is what I have to learn and accept.
Somehow, through the years, perhaps due to having the luxury of time and financial versatility, I’ve come to set for myself an earthly standard of what makes me a worthwhile person living a worthwhile life. I‘ve been priding myself in reaching supposed standards that are more about me than they are about God.
And, obviously, I was wrong.
There are times when we are called to sacrifice certain things in our life. When we are called, we must obey.
But I am slowly learning, day by day, that the something I’m being called to give up may well be my self-inflated view of myself and my idea of a “perfect life.”
As with any idol, the idol of perceived earthly perfection causes sorrow and strife. A Christian cannot experience a meaningful, abundant life when she is hyper-focused on chasing A’s of her own invention. No one ever said that the world will affirm the good and faithful servant. The Lord sets the standards for what He demands of me, and I do not glorify Him when I demand that I must somehow be more than what He is asking of me.
What I do need to do is to discern what my Lord wants me to do in this particular time, do it with all my heart, and be content with whatever that may be.
And if straight C’s are what it’s going to be, then it needs to be enough for me.
