{my images are free goodies for you to enjoy & share}
I placed my head in my hands and whispered, “I can’t do this.” My perplexed husband asked, “Do what?” I replied, “Everything for everyone.” {That might have been a bit of a whiny exaggeration on my part.} He raised an eyebrow at me and smiled a bit before responding, “You don’t have to.”
How do I so easily forget that’s true?
It seems every time I end up exhausted this is the reason: I’ve delusionally decided the fate of the universe and all who live in it is up to me. No pressure, right?
Here’s what’s true: I don’t have to save the world. Jesus already did.
And you don’t have to either.
My friend Serenity works with women at the House of Hope. In a recent newsletter, she shared how what she does can be both wonderful and hard. And she included this quote from someone else trying to make a difference in the lives of others:
You know I cannot save them. I am not here to save anybody or to save the world. All I can do- what I’m called to do- is to plant myself at the gates of hope. Sometimes they walk by. But I stand there every day and I call out till my lungs are sore with calling, and beckon and urge them in toward beautiful life and love.
I can’t get this one phrase out of my mind or heart: I plant myself at the gates of hope. Yes. Isn’t that it?
In other words, our job is simply showing up and pointing the way. Regardless of how it may feel some days, that is enough. We are not the savior of anyone or anything. Instead we’re simply messengers and servants. The only arms strong enough to carry the weight of the world are the ones that stretched out on a cross.
Those same arms are there to hold and carry us when it all feels like too much.
Because what Jesus has already done is truly enough.
XOXO
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P.S. Do you need a little hope, friend? Are you weary? Stacey and Brooke have written words just for you in their new book Hope for the Weary Mom.
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