Enough!

I woke up Friday morning to two sweet kids curled up in my bed with me and a steady stream of thoughts rushing into my head.  My to-do for the day, the weekend, the month, my life came flooding into my brain; it went sort of something like this:

today you need to: finish planning that Children and Worship lesson for Sunday, stop at the store to pick up stuff for the Valentine's Party this afternoon (the one you've known about for three weeks), get kids up, fed, lunches packed, off to school, go to Bible Study, go to kids class parties, drive Kaylee to dance practice, pack bags for kids to be at Matt's, send those emails....

and don't forget about...paying the bills, organizing stuff for work, finish re-doing Isaac and Kaylee and Abbies bedrooms, folding the laundry, cleaning the kitchen (and the bathrooms and the entry way and the living room and the playroom...) putting stuff on craigslist that you took pictures of two weeks ago, and you need to run (10K training starts next week!),  and  make a meal plan for the next 2 weeks, plan Isaac and Abbie's birthday party, and...

At that point I reminded myself that most of things are actually do-able and/or not really a huge deal. Then I started thinking about how I wanted to: find a way to help a friend who is going through a really tough time right now, make a decision about going back to Haiti, offer words of advice to someone about her marriage, make sure my kids know and feel how much I love them, figure out a career path for myself....OK, this is bigger stuff and if I wasn't before, now I was feeling just a little overwhelmed.

With Isaac and Abbie sleeping peacefully next to me, I started to pray. And then it happened again, as I  started to pray for one person, the names of 2,3,4,5,10 other people/things came rushing into my mind.  I couldn't concentrate and my prayer became scattered and jumbled.

Feeling rather overwhelmed and completely incompetent to #1 finish my to-do list and #2 have a meaningful prayer time, God spoke these words to me, "The Lord is my Shepherd, That is Enough."  This was the message preached at my Grandpa Sternberg's funeral on Monday, words that have been rolling around in my brain  all week (probably crashing into my prayer and to-do lists) Thankfully those words came back to me at just the right time.

All this stuff that I need/want to do is good stuff (and some things like feeding children are sort of necessary) but in the end what really matters is my relationship with God.  Yes, there is work to be done, He does want me to be in prayer, but He knows my heart, He is My Shepherd and that is enough.  What a much better and more beautiful way to start a busy day.

Thank you Lord for speaking to me and for guiding me through what is so often an overwhelming season of life.  Let me be faithful to you in all that I do, every day.