God Is Not Asking Me to Be Limitless

There have been seasons in my homeschooling journey when I have been so shortsighted that I could not see the bigger picture. I become consumed by the little failings of an ordinary day or the lesson that didn't go well, the patience I didn't have, the words I wish I could take back. And when my shortcomings affect my children, the feelings of guilt and shame can be overwhelming.

I have often dealt with my limitations in entirely the wrong way. Instead of bringing them to the Lord, I allow them to convince me that I am failing. That homeschooling isn't working. That perhaps all of this isn't worth it.  This is when I start to think like Eve in the garden.
She was unwilling to live within the limits God had given her. She reached for something beyond them, wanting to be more than she was created to be. And I wonder how often I do the same.

I want to be a mother who never loses her patience. A home educator who always knows what to do. A woman who has enough wisdom, energy, and love for every need that comes her way.  In the end, I want to be limitless. And when I inevitably encounter my limits, I complain. I point fingers. I hide. Just as in the garden. In my weariness, I allow my failings to wash over me. I rehearse what I should have done differently and live in regret, sometimes even after I have brought those very things before the Lord.

But then there are moments when God graciously allows me to see a little more of the bigger picture. Recently, I dropped my daughter off at college. As I watched her begin this new chapter, I found myself thinking, I am so thankful for all those years we had together at home. The good and the bad. The lessons we finished and the ones we didn't. The wonderful days and the difficult ones. The conversations, the laughter, the tears, the ordinary hours of being together.  I could see more clearly what I so often miss in the middle of it all: God had been at work.  Not because I had been a perfect mother or home educator. Not because I had somehow overcome all my limitations. But because, in His kindness, He had been at work through a very ordinary, limited woman.

And for a moment, instead of being ashamed of my limits, I could rejoice.  I think of Mary, who received the astonishing news that God would bring His Son into the world through her. She did not possess the power to accomplish what God had promised. She was a creature, dependent upon her Creator. And yet she could say, “Let it be to me according to your word.”
Her response was not to become limitless, but to rejoice in the God for whom nothing is impossible.

What if I could learn to respond to my limitations that way?

What if, instead of allowing my shortcomings to drive me into shame, I allowed them to turn me toward worship? Lord, here I am. Your creature. You know my limits, and yet You have entrusted these children to me. Use even my weakness to bring Your Kingdom into our home.
There are things I need to repent of. There are apologies I need to make and habits I need to change. But I do not need to confuse being a limited human being with being a failure.
God is not asking me to be limitless. He is asking me to be faithful with the life He has given me, dependent upon Him for what I cannot do.

I think God is entirely comfortable with the fact that I am human.

Why am I not?

Perhaps today, when the lesson falls apart or my patience runs thin, I can remember that my limits are not a surprise to my Creator. They are an invitation to turn toward Him.
And perhaps, by His grace, I can learn to rejoice in the middle of an ordinary homeschooling day and not just years later, when I finally get a glimpse of the bigger picture.