When Inadequacy Gets In the Way...
A couple of weeks ago Nate's mom had come to visit and this past Thursday he had decided to take her to a Southern Gospel Concert. I was actually excited, because it opened up this awesome opportunity for a Mommy/Son date night. I had it all planned out. Biruk and I would go to see some of our teens play in their lacrosse game, we'd head to Coldstone for ice-cream (thank you gift cards), and drop by the store to pick up a present for our niece's birthday. It was going to be a perfect night. I got him dressed, packed a little lacrosse stick for him to carry to the game (yes...future lax bro), and we hopped in the car.
The game went great. The walk back to the car was not so great. Biruk didn't want me to hold his hand. He didn't want to ride in the stroller. He didn't want to be carried. That probably should have serviced as a sign to just head home, but there was just one problem. We both wanted ice cream. Despite the warnings, we got in the car, headed up to Coldstone and made a brief pit stop to pick up the birthday gift. I should have just gone straight to Coldstone. In the process of going to the store and picking out a gift, Biruk was in the process of filling up his diaper. Normally, this would have been no problem, but he had just finished a week long stomach virus that had created this hatred towards pooping, being wiped, and having his diaper changed. That hatred created some serious drama that would unfold for the next 30 minutes of my life.
For starters, Biruk was walking around the store like he had a load in his diaper (legs spread doing this ridiculous waddle) and he was walking at the speed of a turtle. He still didn't want to be picked up, touched, or carried at all. By the time I left the store, I was carrying his body horizontally, as he kicked, screamed and cried all the way to the car. As if that wasn't bad enough, when we got to the car, he would not let me put him in his car seat.
I know what you are thinking...he's two. Yeah...well he's a strong willed two year old who is also physically strong and who was adamant that he was not getting in that car seat. I tried everything. I tried coercing him with ice cream, straddling the car seat and physically pushing his body down, talking to him at eye level, explaining it was illegal to ride outside your car seat (I was desperate), and just when I couldn't think of anything else to do, a woman walked by me and said, "You're just gonna have to put him in."
I completely lost it.
I cried so hard that I think Biruk may have thought about calling Grammy to let her know his mom had gone crazy. I had no idea what to do. I felt ashamed for yelling at my kid. I was embarrassed that I couldn't handle a two year old. I felt weak, broken, and desperate. But most of all...I felt inadequate.
Inadequacy. It's my struggle. It's my pressure point. It's the feeling that often keeps me from trying new things, from taking risks, and for believing in what God has placed me here on earth to do. It's often what stops me from fully living.
The other night, my younger sister texted me a "I think you should..." statement. She was asking me to think about doing something that would be a risk for me. She was encouraging me to do something that I didn't feel like I had the makings inside of me to do. I texted her back one word, "inadequate." It was the same word I said over and over and over again that night with Biruk, after I had to call my husband to come meet me in the parking lot to help get our child into the car seat (which by the way, that same child did get in the car and proceeded to say over and over again, "it's ok mama. It's ok!). It was the same word that I would repeat over and over when I pulled over into the Martins parking lot on the way home from that disastrous Mommy/Son date night, and as I called my older sister because I just couldn't stop crying. My feelings of inadequacy had leveled me and caused me to think that night that I was incapable of being a great mom.
That night that I texted my sister the word, "inadequate," she texted me this back. "Are you kidding me? You are insulting God!" I started thinking about that. When we lean into our feelings of "inadequacy," whether that is in our parenting or the things that God is asking of us or calling us to, our perception of the greatness of God gets skewed. We forget that this life has very little to do with what we have to offer and has everything to do with what God is capable of doing.
I'm not ever going to be a perfect mom. In fact, my sisters have both reminded me that those "mommy moments" will come in bulk at times. God is going to ask things of me that are going to cause me to look at him and say, "Seriously? Do you know who you are asking?" probably on a regular basis. I have two choices. I can either lean into my feelings of inadequacy or I can lean into the God who calls things out in us that we can't even see.
I want to learn to lean into the God who calls things out in us that we can't even see. I want to believe that despite how incapable and inadequate I feel, there is a God who is heavily invested in me, who believes I am far more capable that I can believe for myself. Because the truth is, that's God has big dreams for my life. I hope I won't let feelings of inadequacy stand in the way of those.
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