Confessions of a Mom...or me...or whatever

My sermon this week is based on the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Genesis or the second story of creation and eventual fall of humanity.  As I began thinking of adam, the earth creature, my train of thought went to my blog (Hebrew nerds out there may understand that train of thought better than others) and how I've neglected it and then, in a full circle kind of way, began to think of my own utter earthiness.

In the first creation story in Genesis we hear about how humans were created in the likeness or image of God and in the second we hear about how we have been created out of mud, dust, dirt...you know the thing everyone wants to be created out of.

In my own life I wish that I could find more of those moments of being in the image of God.  Those moments of creativity, light, life, and joy.  But lately, I certainly feel much more like that woman created from the mud and dirt and grime.  I say this not as the girl who loves to feel deeply rooted in creation, to feel the mud between my toes; that being who feels richly connected with God when out in the created world.  No, I say this as a girl who feels disconnected, dirty, broken, cast out.

You see, I have a lot of moments where I feel like a terrible mom.  I know this is not a new feeling for many but I feel its full weight lately.   My house is never clean.  I don't spend as much time with my family as I would like because I work full time.  Being a pastor, I never get to sit with my family during church and get to share in the richness of holding a hymnal open and snuggling during the sermon and passing this beautiful tradition on to my daughter.  I often lose my temper when my two year old is pushing boundaries and then feel guilty that I wasn't more patient.  I get angry or grumpy or irritated with people that I love.  And lately with a two year old who doesn't like to go to bed, who wants to climb in and sleep next to us, who gets up at 4am, I am so tired and I try and try to set boundaries so that we all can get better sleep but it takes time and energy and I don't know when to hold those boundaries firmly to create consistency and when to let them bend or break to keep the peace and foster rest and love and comfort.  I feel as though I am always at a loss, like I am one step away from getting and doing and saying everything wrong.  I feel like a creature built of the mud, whose cracks are starting to show as she gets dried out. 

And as I type this, I cry.  I cry because I know it is true and I know it is silly and I know that many others have or do feel all these things and more.  I cry because we live and a world made of people who are also made of mud, who constantly get things wrong and do and say things that hurt one another; that we have to be worried about pain and violence and suffering not only in the world but in our own lives.  I cry because I don't know how to do the one thing that I want so badly to do: to fix it; suddenly turning into someone who always gets and does and says the right things, someone who has more patience and can work full time, keep a clean house and spend glorious joy-filled moments with her family.  And I cry because I know that that perfection is not possible, no matter how much I wish it were.

Today I feel like this earth creature, created out of mud and dust and dirt and a giant part of me wanted to leave this post as a lament, filled with those deep feelings of inadequacy and brokenness but that other part of me, maybe it's the pastor part, maybe it's the part that was created in the image of God, maybe it's both, just couldn't leave this post there.  Because underneath all of this is hope, hope for those moments of light and life and joy and creativity, moments of love and peace, moments of snuggles on the couch and whispered "I Love You"s, moments of laughter.  I have the hope of being someone created of more than just mud and dirt and grime, the hope of being someone lovingly crafted in the image of God, of the very canvas that God used to create all the beauty around me.  It doesn't mean that I feel it every day, but it is my hope to feel it just a little more in each of those moments when I feel at my worst; to be reminded in those moments of frustration and anger that I was created out of more than just dirt and grime.  So I guess, I will hold on to hope.  I will hold on to the first creation story, the reminder that even I, in all my earthy glory, was created in the image of God.

Hats, Hats and More Hats!

This month, the WELCA ladies at one of my churches hosted a breakfast and the theme was "Hats off to Prayer."  It was a fun morning filled with old hats and many stories of mothers and grandmothers along with some nice thoughts about prayer and, as always, plenty of good food.


And between this little get together and the fact that it's derby time, I have been thinking a lot about hats lately, and more specifically the hats that I wear on a regular basis.

So, let's start with the most easily recognizable ones:

1. I am a mom.  This is a hat that I love!  I love being a mom and a wife and everything that comes with it.

 2. I am a Pastor.  This is one of my callings in the world.  I love being able to lead worship and be with people in this beautiful and broken world.

 3. I am a fairly creative person.  I am happiest and more pleasant to be around when I am feeding my creativity and digging into a new project.

 4. I love animals and I especially love any chance I get to spend with my two horses.

 These are just four of the hats that I wear.  To them you could also easily add a chef's hat, a wife hat, an "athlete" hat (and don't worry, I use that phrase very loosely), a friend hat, a daughter hat, a sister hat and the list goes on and on.

I love wearing each and every one of these hats.  As a matter of fact, I usually try my hardest to not do anything that I dislike too terribly much, which is why my house is not all that clean.  But the trouble comes when I try to balance too many hats at once.  Yes, there are often times where I balance 2 or 3 hats at once with little or no problem.  For example: yesterday while driving home, I got a phone call from the funeral home and while on the phone with our amazing funeral director my daughter sat in the back seat screaming at the top of her lungs "NO TALKING MOMMY!!!!!!".  She was tired, as was I and we both needed some quiet time to decompress after long and tiring days.  It happens to all of us, the need to juggle hats from time to time.

But lately I have realized that I can only juggle so many hats for so long before I begin dropping them.  Lately I have felt burnt out, exhausted, inefficient, and not enough.  And this has led me, from time to time to put on this hat...

...the crazy person hat.  And for those of you who have experienced that, I am sorry, but it happens.

And as I sat in that quiet car, post conversation with the funeral director, letting both my daughter and myself decompress, I began to see this theme of "Hats off to prayer" in a different way.  I began to realize that it doesn't matter how many hats you have to juggle.  What matters is that from time to time you must take your hats off and put on the only one that truly matters.  The one that reminds you that you are a beloved child of God, the one that allows you to let go of all the other stuff and simply spend time with your creator, that lets go of the judgment and the anxiety of not being enough, of occasionally dropping a hat and tells you that you are perfect in your imperfection and loved deeply.

Now, I'm not gonna say that this realization has drastically changed my life in 24 hours but it did change the rest of that car ride home.  For at least those thirty minutes I could simply be present in the moment, let go of the hats that I wasn't wearing at the time but worrying over anyway and settle into a quiet moment with God.

Then I pulled into the driveway and started putting my hats back on.  My mom hat, my chef hat as I got dinner on the table, my pastor hat as I dealt with more phone calls regarding funeral arrangements and 100 other things.  The hats never come off fully but I am trying to remember that I also carry on my head the hat of child of God that bids me, from time to time, to take the others off and remember to be still and know our God.