How will you spin all the plates? How will you juggle every ball thrown at you? With more of us women in the workforce and raising a family at the same time ... how do we do it all? The sad reality is that many women aren't able to do it all! Several high profile political operatives as well as business leaders have recently said good bye to politics and business to stay home with their children. Is it really possible to keep pace in marriage, parenting, and work?
No ... I think it's absolutely impossible, unless ... you have "grace for the pace." Without "grace" you will eventually burn out and resent the very things you once loved. Without "grace" you'll eventually feel like a "flat-liner" in life and there will be a sense of detachment in your family. Without grace you'll be begging for Zoloft, you'll want to mist your kid's bedroom with Ritlin and your husband will demand that YOU take Viagra! There will be sorrow and regret.
Today's family lives on zero margins: emotionally, physically, financially, and spiritually. Everyone is required to keep pace, just like the little hamster on the treadmill. What a drag, unless you have "grace for the pace"! But, if you have "grace" ... life is mostly like a well-greased machine. You are energized to do and to be. You know when to say yes and when to say no. You've tapped into something.
Just like you, we live the busy American life with four active kids, pastoring a growing church, writing books, and teaching God's Word around the world. Without "grace for the pace," you'd find me staring into space in a padded room.
So, what is "grace for the pace"? God "graces" each of us with the ability to know, to do, to be, to give, to believe, to say, to have and to function at the pace required by the season we are in. Living in the "grace" is to identify your God-given gifts and bents. It's simply tapping into your God-given abilities. Living without the "grace" is to nix the grace and end up bored, frustrated, empty, disillusioned, maxed out and sledding down a dirt hill.
What does the "grace" look like in real life? My husband and I realize we've been "graced" to be a team, at home and at work. At home, we share chores, duties, laundry and cleaning, chauffeuring kids ... and there is "grace" to do it. If I was required to do it all "just because I'm the mom"... I'd run out of gas and the pace would burn me out.
At work, as a husband/wife pastoral team, we've learned to identify our God-given abilities. Then — rather than allowing our egos to get hurt because one of us is "graced" in an area where the other is not — we encourage each other to exercise the "grace" for the benefit of the congregation.
Have you identified God's "grace" in your life? Are you tapping in? It's true: life is good, marriage is good, families are good, work is good and church is good when you operate in the "grace"! No matter how many plates you are required to spin or how many balls you must juggle ... make it a point to find your "grace for the pace"!
Beth
