And God Said, "Slow down!"

 Once upon a time, I was in the school counselor's office trying to figure out how to graduate from community college by May 2015. It was decided that I would take 17 credits Fall '14 and 15 credits Spring '15 so that I'd be ready to graduate and transfer to ASU.

I chanted the, "I can do hard things" quote in my head over and over again as I signed up for 6 classes and tried to figure out a schedule that worked for my life.

Sigh...

It took most of the summer. I kept leaving the task for another day because it was stressing me out.

Sometimes being a single mom sucks. It was so dang hard to find a schedule that would fit the classes I need and keep us in a mostly normal routine.

I finally did it and signed up for all Tuesday/Thursday classes, all during the day---except for one stupid class that I could only find on Thursday nights.

I figured the sacrifice would be something I could handle for four months. And the thing is, it was possible.

But right when school started, I decided to go back to work. And right when I decided to go back to work, Spidey started preschool.

And right when all of this happened, Spidey started crying a lot when he would get dropped off to babysitters.

And my mom guilt became a huge burden because all I wanted to do was quit everything and stay home with him all day, every day.

So let's recap:
A week into my new job and school starting, I was ready to throw it all away.
A week.

 Well, God knows me. He knows I won't just quit, even when things are really frickin hard. He knows I'll kill myself until I get everything fit into our crazy schedule.

I'm the least perfect perfectionist in the entire world. Our house is crazy, our schedule is crazy, and my kids are sticky-faced and wearing mismatched shoes.

But I'm really hard on myself and I try to fit it all in and get it all done.

 Well, due to some unforseen circumstances, I was dropped from my Thursday night class. When I found this news out, I had a moment of panic and I just wanted to crawl in a hole. But following my panic, I felt an incredible amount of peace come over me and I felt like God was saying, "Slow down!"

He knows how busy we are. He knows that it's hard for Spidey to get used to having a working mom. And I feel like he found a way to teach me that it's ok to slow down a little bit.

I can't be a super mom. I can be the mom that my kids need but I really can't be much more.

Most days, I'm just hanging on by a thread. I've been struggling a lot lately and I just can't seem to find my bravery that everyone else seems to believe I have within me. I'm not giving myself breaks. In fact, I've been pushing myself harder than ever before.

So God said, "Slow down." and all I could do was nod my head and realize that He is right.

I have my whole life ahead of me. I'm only 26 years old and my kids are still young. We can slow things down a tiny bit sometimes. As much as I want to rush through school and be able to provide a better life for my kids RIGHT NOW, I feel a whole lot of peace tonight as I think about how rushed we already are.

I can do hard things...but I don't have to push myself farther than I need to right now.

It's ok that I need to slow down. It doesn't make me weak. It just makes me human.