Are you a pinterest girl? I am. Hooked. Totally.
I love the tips, I love the crafts, I love the great food pictures.
Anyway, if you’re on pinterest, you’ve probably soaked up some awesomeness, and maybe a little.... self-condemnation too. Have you ever tried that DIY project you saw step by step, listed as “easy” and your creation turned out just horrid? Yeah. Me too.
Have you seen those comments like “soooo easy! takes ten minutes!” tried your hand at it and four hours later you emerge from the garage beaten and discouraged? Yeah. Me too. Or maybe it’s just the rushing onslaught of busyness and work and know-how from women who must have capes tied around their super-human shoulders. Those caped-women! I have no cape, if I did, I’m pretty sure I’d just get tangled in it and trip! Some women really do manage a job, homeschooling, baking their own bread, a family-sized farm in the backyard, no debt and every conceivable craft project listed on Martha Stewart. But something tells me they don’t do all of it in a day, even if it looks like it from our “pinned” perspective.
There’s a few women whom I regularly learn from and admire from an online distance. A couple nights ago after reading some of their success stories (which were pinned), I said to my husband, “How come I can’t get it together better?” My man, ever my cheerleader, helped me realign my notion of “together” out from under the word of Pinterest to God’s Word. Two of his comments struck an all too true chord: you’re comparing and that’s not healthy, and you’re not resting and in trusting God. Nope. I wasn’t. I was letting the need to match up gnaw at my insides, instead of trusting that what the Maker has made and is making in me is enough. My discontent stemmed from my trying desperately to scheme a way to balance and stretch more things to cover the practical needs God knows we have, instead of resting in His provision. I was churning and spinning instead of ceasing striving.
The next day I was preparing for our college girls’ Bible study (oh! I LOVE those precious girls to pieces!) We’ve been reading through Ephesians and studying God’s character traits and who we are in Him. It’s been rich. Anyway, long about the close of chapter 3, the words “Now to Him who is able...” leaped off the page. I always get caught up in the rest of the passage, the immeasurably bigger part. I felt the Holy Spirit whisper, I am Able. So very Able. Don’t let your eyes wander to the horizon of what’s big and beyond your imagination, right now. Just look at how I am able. That’s where we pitched our tent and camped. On His ability. We looked up verses from the Old and New testament declaring His ability over every possible need we could have.
I’m sure it’s not just a woman thing, but there is something unique about the way we all experience the fear of being a failure, the anxiety of life falling all to pieces, the worry of not having it together. We tend to fuss more than men. We spin our wheels a lot. Our worry drains us. Each of us in the group that night shared a personal struggle we needed to see God’s ability shine through. Anxiety and stress touched each one of us and that was the very place we needed a fresh brush with our Father’s all-sufficient ability. His word washed over us.
In this world that overflows with needs, that clamors for our attention, that pressures us to leave our mark and make a difference, we need to step back from time to time and re-center our focus. When we set our minds to figuring out what we are able to do in or for a situation, we will end up drained. But when we set our heart to seek what God is able to do in the situation, His power flows through us into that need. Whether it’s our need to be a better organized mom, financially stretch to cover life’s necessities, see your marriage healed or a far reaching passion to help others over the globe, the answer will never start with us. The answers won’t start with even the most beautifully presented pictures from the most amazing women on pinterest. It will start and end with the Author, Creator and Sustainer, our Lord. Fixing our eyes and heart on His ability is the best way we can become the women we want to be, the women out world needs us to be, and most importantly, the women God designed us to be.
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