Last week I ran to Target to pick up a few things before Little Miss's bus time. As I got out of the van I caught sight of another mom. She was bent over her own daughter, who, like mine, was eeking out the last of the age of fitting in cart seats. As I watched their sweet moment, Mom whispering to daughter, I felt the familiar surge of inadequacy. The little girl's hair was in tight neat braids, curving around her head in a crown. My own daughter was jumping next to me, straggly hair jumping with her, sticking straight up in the places she cut it herself, weeks before. "Why can't I just get it together?" Little Miss reached for my hand to skip with her through the parking lot. We skipped together into the store; her singing, me distracted. I was sure everyone we passed was silently casting judgment on my ability to mother this bedraggled girl. Several aisles over we passed the crown of braids again, mother still bent over child. As I reached for the cereal I could now hear the mother, no longer whispering. "Because they won't stay on your feet....Because they're not even your shoes! Why didn't you wear your own shoes? And why don't you have pants?" I nearly laughed out loud. In God's infinite humor, I was pulled back to reality through a shoeless cart princess with no pants.
God has chosen me for these places and positions. He's invited me to be a wife, a mother to these three treasures, a worship leader. I am weak. I am afraid. And I am in great company. Moses tried to argue his inadequacies to God. (Exodus 3:11, 12) Sarah laughed at God's plans for her and her family. (Genesis 18:12) Paul said, "And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power." (1 Corinthians 2)
So that my faith will rest on God's power. Not on my ability to French Braid. Not on my self ranking against random shoppers. God's message comes through me when God's power is in me.
"Spirit, Lead me where my trust is without borders, let me walk upon the waters wherever you would call me. Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander, and my faith will be made stronger, in the presence of my Savior." -Hillsong, Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)
Even if it takes me down the aisles of Target, praying self doubt away, skipping hand in hand with a special little girl with wild hair.
