More Is Never Enough

A few days ago I lost the majority of my emotional wherewithal over boiled eggs.  Yes, you read that right.  BOILED.  EGGS.  Now I have been known to be a little extra from time to time, but boiled eggs ranks pretty high on the list of ridiculous things that have triggered my ride on the crazy train.

A simple conversation turned into stomping around crying with side glares and declarations that I was surely a complete failure.  As a mom, as a wife, as a general human being.  The announcement was so outlandish that sweet husband looked at me as if I had two heads.  He literally laughed, “What??”  [Spoiler alert:  Husbands of the world, as a rule, DO NOT laugh at a woman when she is upset… no matter how outrageous she is being.  It often does not bode well for your coming moments.]

And for the next twenty minutes despite his objections and encouragement to the contrary, I tried to articulate my feelings of failure and the majority of statements had an eerily similar parallel…

I need to be more organized.

I need to be more patient.

I need to read more.

I need to lose more weight.

I need to have more of a schedule.

I need to clean the house more.

I need to be more fashionable.

I need to be more involved.

I need to pray more.

I. NEED. MORE.

Whether pertaining to my actions or my character, one thing remains the same.  I need more.  And none of these, in their own right, are bad things.  Certainly, I (and those around me) could benefit from me being more patient.  A better schedule or more organization is always helpful to the chaos.  I’d even dare to say that no one ever died from a new outfit or a killer pair of heels.

But there is one major flaw in all of these ambitions.  I am not enough.  There.  I said it.  I’m not enough.  No matter how hard I work.  No matter how hard I try.  No matter how much I clench my fist and grit my teeth and put forth my best effort… I am not enough.

So at the end of the day, I find myself having run myself ragged in pursuit of all of the things that society tells me will make me a better human, a better wife, a better mother.  And even when I am burning the candle at every end trying to get it right, I find myself feeling as though it is not enough.

Do you want the secret to success?  Sustainability?  Strength?

“He must become greater; I must become less.”  [John 3:30]  That’s right.  Rather than focusing my attention on all the ways I must become more, the real tides turn when I realize that in fact, I must become less.  On my best day, with my best effort, with all I have, I am not enough.  It is only when I allow God to come in and take control and increase in me that His strength takes over in my weakness.

And so today, my declaration is not that I must become more.  Rather, let me focus on something a little profound… I will become less, and in Him be made strong, and somehow, that has a funny way of taking a lot of pressure off of my tired, stomping, sad about boiled eggs shoulders…  Here’s to LESS.