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For the fainthearted.

Today, as I cleaned the bathroom, picking up underwear, gathering stray bath toys and scrubbing away at toothpaste dribbles, I chuckled to myself at the thought that “Motherhood is not for the faint of heart”.

It’s a hard working, back-aching, around the clock affair that no amount of preparation can actually prepare you for.

The same goes for so many things. Parenting, love, marriage, singleness, work, physical limitations: the list could go on forever.

Ultimately, one could say that life itself is not for the faint of heart.

Or is it?

As I stood scrubbing toothpaste, I decided that life and motherhood ARE for the faint in heart. They ARE for the weak, for the weary, for the unprepared.

The truth is that on my own, I can’t muster the desire or the energy to get up again every morning and prepare another breakfast that will make yet another set of dishes that will mean yet another day started with my hands in the sink.
On my own, I simply don’t have the desire to do another load of laundry or to prepare another supper or to sweep up peanut butter sandwich crumbs again and again.
On my own, I don’t actually want to bake cookies just so that my kids will know that I love them, or rock the sick baby to sleep late at night or clean out the rabbit cage.
On my own, I don’t want to break up another fight or microwave my coffee for the third time or have to sneak in quick showers while kids are napping.

On my own, I am faint hearted. I am tired, and honestly, I am selfish. I don’t want to give ALL of me, all of my time (all twenty-four-hours-a-day of it) to my family. I am fainthearted.

The great comfort is that I don’t have to attempt motherhood on my own, because my Saviour came for people like me; for the fainthearted.

He came for the weak, the sick, the poor, the needy (Mark 2:17). He came to be my strength, your strength and our joy. He came to give full, abundant, joyful life (John 10:10). He came and sacrificed and calls us to do the same.

And on our own, nope, we can’t. But with Him, ALL things are possible.

I love something that Ann Voskamp said, “Don’t lose your joy or you will lose your strength”. Why? Because “The joy of the Lord is your strength”(Nehemiah 8:10)

If you are weary today, if you woke up to this cold fall morning and just wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, if you didn’t want to drive to work and deal with miserable people for yet another day, if your kids were crying before you even got your hair brushed...take heart!

Because “Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted (that sounds familiar!); but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:30-31)

No matter the task ahead of you today or tomorrow or this week, God’s grace and strength are more than enough to carry you through.


You don’t have to get by on your own strength. You can turn that fainthearted, weary spirit over to God and stand amazed at His limitless strength. 

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