Exhaustion to Grace: How I’m Learning to Serve
Happy 4th!
I woke up this morning and got the unexpected surprise of my sister volunteering to pick up my four oldest kiddos to take them to hang out with her and some of my extended family. God bless my sis!!
After cleaning up, making some homemade pizza for myself and my hubby, and enjoying some much-needed quality time together, I found that I had some down time to do what I love—write a blog post.
Sourdough pizza from freshly-milled einkorn wheat berries. Y’all, I’m quite proud of myself and the skills I’m honing year by year. Made 3 large pizzas like this because I thought the kiddos were going to be here. Since I have a hard time digesting cow’s milk (though I still indulge sometimes), I made a separate one for myself with goat’s cheese. Just as delish!
Not that you asked, but wanna know what’s been on my mind?
Lately, the Holy Spirit has been leading me to meditate on 1 Peter. This past week, it’s been difficult to move past the following verses:
9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.
10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
11 If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.1 Peter 4: 9-11
Night after night, my eyes keep resting on verse 11:
"If anyone serves, they should do so WITH THE STRENGTH GOD PROVIDES."
WHY?
So that in all things, God may be praised through Jesus Christ.
Y’all.
That part.
So…I’m a mother.
And if you are a mother, or serve in any caretaking role in its many forms, you know that you serve. In fact, you find yourself serving constantly.
There have been times when I’ve lashed out at my husband in exhaustion because, quite frankly, I’ve been tired of serving.
Some of those times may have been warranted—haha, I digress—but many of those times, I was serving… but doing so from a place of Jessica's strength. Certainly not God's.
How do I know?
Because, many of those times, I was serving by completing tasks and lists that were never warranted by my Creator to complete. Sometimes, I’ve felt the Lord literally tell me to GO TO BED, and I look at a set of dirty dishes and think, “Just one more thing, and then I’ll…”
It’s in the moments when I finally yield myself and my plans to Him that His strength takes over, and I suddenly feel a grace and operate under a covering that I didn’t know could exist. And though the day can still be challenging, it no longer feels so weighty. Can you relate?
Story time.
One Sunday morning, my husband and I were running late to attend our church—like, a whole 60 minutes late. But we had already gotten all the kids dressed and ready, so we decided to visit another church where we knew the pastor and some of the congregants.
When we arrived, worship had just begun, and at this church, it was encouraged to spread out and worship comfortably since there was space.
I took our youngest daughter (5 months old at the time) to worship at the back of the church. I sat down on the concrete floor and breastfed while the worship hymn “I Surrender All” washed over me.
While singing, I found myself having a difficult time uttering the words, “I surrender…all.”
I kept trying to sing the lyrics but couldn’t.
I asked the Holy Spirit what was up, and what He spoke to me made me pause.
“Do less…so I can do more.”
“Huh?”