You’ve Got This

It happened yesterday. I was having a Tuesday. A Tuesday still shadowed by post-holiday slumpiness and house mess. A Tuesday in January, no less. Why on earth God found fit to throw this horrid month into the year, I’ll never understand.

I was stomping fabulously around the house, trying to watch a 4 yr. old, unpack a massive grocery run, tackle the dirty breakfast dishes still on the table and take a business call all at the same time. A day of a tight schedule, I was also eyeing the clock heavily, knowing I had to finish up by 11am if I was to have any hope of getting my workout in before the next school run.

I could do this, really.

I could not do this. Because I’m human. It didn’t happen.

Cognitively, I’m down with this whole being human business and the implied limitations. I requested my superhero cape years ago, but it has yet to materialize.

What I’m not so cool with is those paralyzing moments when you just don’t feel so okay about those limitations. When it feels scary and uncertain if you’ll make it through whatever it is you need to make it through.

It might be something like the surface of a Tuesday: will I ever be able to get this pit of a household in order and still make it to our next appointment?

It might be a Tuesday that resonates a little deeper: will there ever be a point in my life when I can shower like a normal person and not feel like a walking circus show? I am so, so tired of being a circus show…

It might be the stress and strain of having a child you don’t know how to best care for, despite all your good intentions and powerful love.

It might be the hurt and logistical chaos of having an ill or dying loved one.

It might be the endless confusion of planning a Disney vacation for the first time. Go ahead and laugh: I used to, now I’m actually doing it myself and end up quaking in fear with my planning books more nights than not.

It might be having a sick kid–for the umpteenth millionth day in row.

It might be other stymieing first-time events: potty-training, PTA meetings, attending a Bikram yoga class, going back to school, an aggressive plan to address the weight situation you’ve been ignoring for too long, or dating when you haven’t done it since you were a hot little young thing.

It might be a complicated battle with the cable company. Or panic over news that a new water heater is needed. Or the unfortunate realization that your neighborhood’s desperate electric service will not permit getting through winter’s worst sans the purchase of a powerfully terrific generator.

In my most neurotic of days, it might be adjusting to the use of a new, simpler paper planner system. Yes, I’m serious.

In my darker of days, it might be that impenetrable feeling of loneliness or missing someone who’s gone known only to those who’ve been in such shoes.

As I look at this list of what might rock and shake our worlds, I didn’t plan to link to so many previous posts about personal fires. Yet that’s a pretty cool testament to my mantra. You see, surviving storms has nothing to do with strength, but it has everything to do with the mantra that began continuously streaming through my mind since my first child was born, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13).

I repeat it when I battle to find time for that work-out or a shower. I repeat it when my daughter screams through her 16th temper tantrum of the day. I repeat it when I’m scared, when I’m confused, or so tired it takes me a long minute to remember where the washing machine is in my own house. True story.

I repeat it, and repeat it often. And it is always, never not, pervasively, wholly true. And it is my strength, and it carries me.

Yet on my most recent Tuesday, truth told, what I most wanted was someone to say to me was, “You’ve got this.”

I needed to hear those words. Those exact words.

And so, in turn, I’m saying them to you, my dear readers. In case you need to hear them. In case you need strength for your journey, whatever that journey is.

I don’t know what you are facing, what it is that you must go through, but I do know, in my heart of hearts, that you are sold-out trying and this life has a crazy ability to resolve itself, for good or for bad. And so I know that you’ve got this. You’ve so, so got this.

When this life feels scary or uncertain or insurmountable, you’ve got this. I say this as a fellow mom in the trenches, and I say it with all the love I could ever hope to pass on. In these moments, above all else running through your mind, know that YOU’VE GOT THIS.

Really. xo

Sometimes the best way to be a friend is to simply be REAL; for more thoughts on this and encouraging those around you, check out this fantastic conversation on VProud.tv.

Second image credit: depositphotos.com, image ID:23130764, copyright:DenysKuvaiev

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Meredith

Meredith blogs at The Mom of the Year, where she dedicatedly earns her title one epic parenting fail at a time, offering quick, relatable laughs for fellow parents and all their empathizers. She has been part of several best-selling anthologies, featured on prominent sites such as Huffington Post, In the Powder Room and BlogHer, and loves her role as the Executive VP/Operations Manager of The BlogU Conference. When she's not breaking up fights over Legos and juice boxes, she remains fully committed to sharing a less serious look at the world of parenting.

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