Recently, I posted a status update on facebook that read:
The human race would be extinct if women had any idea how demanding motherhood would be.
My job as a mother is serious business. Not for the faint-hearted, for sure! I wouldn’t trade it for anything… except maybe for a week in a tropical paradise… then I would want my demanding life right back again.
I’ve shared that the Lord has been teaching me how to rest in the midst of my demanding life. Clearly, sleep is helpful. I try to get 7 hours each night. Time alone with Him is necessary too… so my soul can rest. Then there’s my current fling with Amish fiction. My mind needs the rest from homeschool pre-algebra and the mental gymnastics required to outwit my 16 month old.
Recently, the Lord showed me that I need more help to rest my body. I’ve had two massages in the past few weeks. Amazing. Also enlightening.
I have major kinks and knots in my neck and shoulders! The stress of life and motherhood have taken their toll on me. I am carrying around tension in my body, and I have decided that this tension is no longer welcome. Of course, these knots will not budge without skilled hands… and not without pressure.
Now, there’s a word that keeps resurfacing in my life. Pressure. I am ever-aware that God allows pressure to build in my life so that I will keep running to Him. So that, one day, I might never leave His side!
While laying on the massage table today, I gladly welcomed the painful pressure necessary to work the knots out of my shoulder muscles. Welcoming pain… did I really say that?
Suddenly, I became aware that the pressure God permits in my life is also working out some of the knots in my heart. He is loosening up my heart muscles so that I can relax and trust Him more. The knots of fear, bitterness, and desire for control are kneaded out as I allow His pressure to work in my life.
Maybe I can learn to welcome the pressure and pain He permits… as easily as I welcomed the heavy hands of massage today. Hmmmm…. I am definitely moving in that direction. Lead me, Lord.