No Longer Surviving

Being a woman is amazing and we should pat ourselves on the back for that. Yes we have to go through a lot of hormonal changes with time but when you think about it, being a woman is amazing. Not only did God create women of all different varieties but the things that he places inside of us are wonderful. Not only do we have menstrual cycles that men would die from, but God has also blessed us with intuition, the ability to give life, ability to nurture anyone or anything and the ability to juggle what seems like everything with ease.

But is it all an act? Because juggling is hard, exhausting, frustrating, and depressing, however, we do it with a smile and people who have not walked in our shoes, don’t have the faintest idea of how hard it is. What they see, is a “strong” woman. What they don’t know is it mentally and physically exhausting and it breaks some of us.

I am a single mother of 2 children still living at home and 3 adult children making their way in the world. I work full time as a paralegal at a bankruptcy firm, attend college full time, working on my masters, work part-time to make a little extra money, maintaining my relationship with my fiancée, among other miscellaneous things. So I am often stretched to the max and exhausted after it all. I have to juggle many tasks at once to make it through the day let alone the week. People are amazed at the ability and say the dreaded you are a “strong” woman phrase.

If I am going to be honest, I hate having to be that “strong” woman and I am tired of having to be that “strong” woman. I wish I never went through the things that I did to have to be a “strong” woman, I have often felt like it was unfair. But it has happened and I cannot change it, but what I can do is change the perspective of how I see my past and present and how my future is going to be.

I started to see my past experiences as learning skills that I now have to navigate this world. My childhood was very chaotic but what I have learned is to remain steady when chaos happens. So instead of buckling under stress, I have learned to manage it effortlessly and let my resilience re-establish the balance. When the situations are intense, I have skills to de-escalate the situation. As I have gotten older, I refuse to deal with unnecessary stresses, I will eliminate it.

The biggest thing that helps to manage the juggling act that I sometimes have to do is going to Jesus. In Matthew 11:28, it states to come to Jesus, all that labor and is covered in burden and He will give you rest. When I feel myself stressing or getting tired, I realized that I am trying to do all this alone, and that I am not depending on God for direction. After prayer, God points out the things that I am doing that he has not told me to do or He tells me that I need to rest.

With me going to Jesus to find my rest and changing my perspective on my past and present, I will make a better future. I will start living life the way I am supposed to since I am no longer trying to survive.