A shift is needed

Today I read this:

We can sometimes forget exactly what the great hope of Christianity is. It is not that Jesus Christ will fulfill all of our own natural aspirations for happiness. It is hope in a triumphant future that only God can and will provide.

Each of us faces a choice. We can choose to see ourselves as the Lord's servants and humbly seek to know what He wants us to do with the talents and time He has given us. As such, we can seek to enlarge His kingdom and prepare for his return. Or we may imagine that the story is all about us. Too many fall into this trap. They forget that they are His servants and begin to imagine that He is theirs. They think erroneously that Christ came to make all their dreams come true. For those in such a trap, prayer becomes like dropping memos in a desk in a heavenly office: "Could you please take care of this as soon as possible?"

(Excerpt from: https://magazine.byu.edu/article/return-of-the-king/ )

I love this, and I read it, in part, as an answer to some of the prayers I've been offering lately. I think some of my prayers are very much like a memo request, but honestly, a lot of them are "this is where my heart is today; please help me change." But I realized (or realized again) today that I've been asking the wrong questions, and that's been making it hard to receive answers to the questions I have been asking.

If I ask, "what should I be doing in my life to find meaning?" how is the Lord supposed to answer me if the only answers I'm open to are outside the work that I'm already doing that the Lord has already told me I should make my primary responsibility?

Or, put another way, where is the sense in spending half my mental energy feeling like I'm not a good enough mom and then spending the other half looking for something outside of motherhood to throw myself into? Why do I not throw my whole self into becoming a better mother? Becoming the mother I feel I could be or should be. Or, 'should' aside, the mother that my children need.

Perhaps that could be answered in a lot of different ways. Sometimes I say It's too hard or I don't want to. But viewed from the perspective above, these reasons are just excuses or are completely backward. Which I know. But this family thing I'm trying to do isn't all about me. It's a little bit about me, because it has the potential to grow me into the person God wants me to be. But it's mostly about striving to serve God in the way he's given me to serve him. It's mostly about preparing my children to serve God, if they so choose.

Another answer is that I'm afraid. I am sincerely afraid that if I throw my whole self into this mothering thing (which I'm sure I have done to varying degrees before now over the years), I will still fail. I will still feel inadequate. That's honest. But it's not a reason to go on half-heartedly. In fact, it may be the best reason of all to "humbly seek" as it says above. 

I'm not sure exactly what this looks like. Yet. Will I choose to start making changes as a result of these insights today? What will be my first step?