Searching for Balance

Hey, did you hear about twenty-seven-year-old Amber Miller, who, in her thirty-eighth week of pregnancy, completed the 26.2-mile Chicago Marathon then checked into a hospital to plunk out a healthy baby girl?

Now that’s what I call a mom on the fly!

Well, you and I might not officially run marathons, but we both know our feet fly at a marathoner’s pace most days. So many things we must do; a few things we want to do; and countless things we should do.

You know, should is a dangerous word. It’s a stress-filled, pressure-packed slave driver. It ruthlessly inflates the bulk of a mother’s to-do list, often crowding out healthy sanity-essentials with guilt-induced clutter.

• I should go to that parents’ meeting.
• My mother thinks I should cook a big dinner every night like she did.
• I should clean my house so the kids won’t write notes in the dust.

There’s always more we should be doing.

But as every woman striving to squeeze into last year’s skinny jeans knows, more isn’t always better; sometimes it’s simply overwhelming. Listen, we can be whelmed without being overwhelmed. Whelmed is livable; overwhelmed is strangling.

We just have to recognize that we truly do have the power to choose which shoulds are potential coulds … and then unapologetically embrace the woman our choices make us.

Only then can we clear the choking clutter and take a deep, cleansing, reinvigorating breath. Whew. The pressure is now manageable.

“I will strengthen you, surely I will help you” (Isaiah 41:10 NASB).

*Excerpted from Deb’s new book, Too Blessed to be Stressed for Moms (available for preorder right now at Amazon and hits bookstore shelves Sept 1!). Used with permission from Barbour Publishing.

So what do you think of my new book so far, dear BBFF (Blessed Blog Friend Forever)? I’ll be posting passages from Too Blessed to be Stressed for Moms throughout Aug and Sept. If you know a stressed-out mom who might be blessed by this brief excerpt, will you please forward this post to her? Many thanks!

And don’t forget to catch the …

Blessed Mom Giveaway #2, now playing at my website near you! (DeboraCoty.com) Just click on “Freebies” then the Giveaway for details on how to enter.

This is the 2nd of 4 fabulous giveaways celebrating Too Blessed to be Stressed for Moms. If you enter once, your name STAYS IN for all the following drawings, and the prize packages just keep getting bigger and better each time!