When You’ve Reached Your Limits

When You’ve Reached Your Limits
[Motherhood Leaves Stretch Marks on Your Soul]
By: Brittany Shields

If there is one thing I’ve learned from motherhood, it’s that it pushes you to your limits.

Okay, I’ve learned some other things too, but let’s be real. Nothing can prepare you for the way being a mom stretches you.

I mean this very literally— I had 3 pregnancies, the last one carrying twins to 30 weeks— but also figuratively.

I have never cried more or loved harder than I have for my kids.

I’ve caught vomit in my hands. I’ve danced like a lunatic (actually this is my sweet spot). I’ve bribed my kids with every last thing on God’s green earth to eat just one bite of supper. I’ve read the same book 5 times in a row and did the voices every time.

I’ve been a climbing a tower, a tickle monster, a baby, a wolf, a tunnel, and some sort of version of a lego-building, ball-throwing, superhero who wears a mask, 5 necklaces, and a diaper on her head. We get real specific over here.

I’ve sat in a chair rocking one crying baby, looking at my other crying baby, and started crying because I couldn’t rock them both and how was I going to make it better?

I’ve had sleepless nights. I’ve had days I didn’t want to get out of bed.

I’ve also had paralyzing moments of fear when I imagine all the ways my children could get hurt physically, emotionally, and spiritually and realize I can’t protect them from everything.

I’ve known frustration, helplessness, and exhaustion.

But I would do it all again a million times over for my mind-boggling little miracles of humans.

I look at them in awe and wonder as they grow into themselves.

Man, they challenge me and teach me and convict me.

It’s no surprise that being part of a family is one of God’s primary ways of refining us.

I’ve always said that I didn’t realize how selfish I was until I got married. And then I had kids and laughed at my precious, nap-taking, naive, past self because you don’t know sacrifice until you are responsible for helping another human survive.

Being a mom is hard. It’s one hundred percent rewarding, but it’s. So. Hard.

And there’s some perky life coaches out there who keep spinning this narrative that if we just try hard enough, we will become boss moms who achieve all our dreams, raise perfect kids, and will be able to afford a lifetime supply of coffee (which does not resonate with me at all. I don’t drink coffee, come back to me with all the fruit and cheese and we’ll talk.)

We start to think that if we’re struggling we must be doing something wrong. We need to try harder, dig deeper, be better. There’s some magical mom-power deep inside our stretched wombs that if we could just tap into, we would achieve this ever elusive boss-mom status.

We don’t like to reach our limits. We don’t like to admit our insufficiencies or deal with struggles.

But there’s a reason God lets us struggle.

We are not self-sufficient.

We will never be self-sufficient.

Self-sufficiency is a lie.

Striving for self-sufficiency as a mom will be a massive ball of stress, guilt, rage, sadness, and Oreos. The last one sounds good but trust me, in this context, it’s not.

We need God. More than we will ever admit to ourselves.

We are limited creatures who were made to worship their limitless God.

Self-sufficiency robs God of glory.

I have four kids 5 and under. My twins were born in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic at 30 weeks and spent over 70 days in the NICU. Almost every day since then I get in bed at night and think ‘How did I get to the end of this day?’

People ask me all the time- ‘How do you do it?’

The most honest answer I have is ‘By the grace of God.’

Every day is beyond me. I am not sufficient to the task.

But God is.

He gives us limitations and struggles to remind us that we need him. We are not good enough and we never will be. We need to have the right posture before our God. He is Lord and we are not. He is in control and we are not. He is all-wise and all-powerful and we are not. He is strong when we are weak.

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Cor. 12:9)

And this leads us to into an intimate fellowship with him where we are fueled by his strength, his peace, and his love. A relationship where we recognize and worship our Source.

Speaking of fellowship… my husband and I just finished rewatching The Lord of the Rings trilogy. (I know, pretty genius segue…) Those movies have a lot of battles. Battles where the good guys are up against an endless army of Orcs. And I was struck by the courage those warriors had to have to stand up against that army.

And then I thought of all the times in the Bible where God directed his people to fight an army that was way larger than them. Sometimes he even told them they had too many people and needed to send some home.

Why?

By all logic, that small Israelite army should have been slaughtered. But God was going to give them victory and he wanted them to know that it was because of Him.

When things go wrong, we like to blame. When they go right, we like to take credit. Hello sin nature!

God gives us families that pretty much immediately expose our limits and our weaknesses so that when we get to the end of our days and wonder how we got there, we will say, ‘Thank you God for being enough for me. There’s no way I did that without you.’

Our sin nature looks at the different battles we face every day and we think ‘We’re going to need more troops. Or at least an army of trees up in here!’ (That’s an LOTR reference…)

But we need to wake up every morning with courage, facing our battles with the power of the Holy Spirit, knowing that he promises us strength, peace, comfort, wisdom, patience, and all the other fruits of the Spirit! Victory is his and we can trust him for it. Let him be your Sustainer.

As moms we have to manage so many things that our need for control infringes on our trust in God. Our daily struggles dim our perspective of who God is and we allow our limits and failures lead us down a path of self-sufficiency instead of resting in the person and power of God.

Knowing these things doesn’t eliminate our battles or our struggles. Trusting God doesn’t mean every day is magically easier and void of messes and bickering and exhaustion.

But trusting God does mean that we are plugged into an endless supply of everything we could possibly need. (Well, except healthy, ready-to-eat meals three times a day. Unfortunately for me, that’s not a biblical promise.)

“My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (Phillipians 4:19)

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” (2 Cor. 9:8)

God is indeed stretching us. We may carry some stretch marks. But just as the stretch marks on our body evidence growth and life, so do our spiritual stretch marks.

The stretch marks that result from motherhood reflect a journey that includes pain, struggle, waiting, and exhaustion, but it’s also a journey of joy, anticipation, peace, strength, and growth.

Stretch marks are the battle wounds of being in the army of the Lord. Motherhood is the frontlines. We are stewarding eternal, rebellious, and sinful souls. God has called us to the challenge of shaping them, teaching them, and loving them. But the joy and rewards are endless when we see what God can accomplish through us.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” (James 1:2-5)

He carries us beyond our limits and sustains us. We are stretched but he is victorious.

God is asking you to trust him when you’ve been stretched to your limit.

Ask yourself— Is God enough for you?

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light'” (Matt. 11:28-30)

**This article was first published on Her View from Home in March, 2022 and can be viewed HERE**