This Season of Motherhood
This Season of Motherhood
Motherhood has taught me that seasons rarely look the way we imagine they will. Some are tender, some exhausting, some quietly beautiful in hindsight.
I’m learning to meet this season as it is — imperfect, stretching, and deeply human — trusting that grace is present even when I don’t feel put together.
The Day I Couldn’t Be in Two Places at Once
A few weeks ago, my newborn was screaming — the kind of cry that means now, not in a minute — and at the exact same time, my four-year-old was standing in front of me holding a puzzle piece, saying “Mommy, watch, watch, watch” for the fourth time, voice rising with every repeat.
I had a baby on one arm and a hand up, palm out, saying “one second, baby, one second” to my toddler who does not understand the concept of one second. And somewhere in that minute, I just stood there — frozen, holding a screaming infant, watching my four-year-old’s face fall — and thought: I am failing both of you, right now, simultaneously.
Not in some abstract, someday way. In a real, current, 2:47pm way.
I ended up sitting on the kitchen floor with both of them. Baby on my chest, finally calming. Toddler climbing into my lap uninvited, puzzle piece still in hand, suddenly not needing anything except to be close. And I just sat there in the mess of it — bottle on the counter, half a snack abandoned on the table, both of them needing me in completely different languages — and cried a little myself.
Not because it was tragic. Because it was just true. Some days, there isn’t enough of me to go around, and nobody warns you how much that specific kind of failing hurts.
My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. — 2 Corinthians 12:9
I don’t think that verse means God swoops in and makes the juggling easier. I think it means He meets you exactly there — on the floor, divided in two, doing your honest best in a moment that has no good option — and calls that enough. Not because it looked like enough. Because His grace was the thing actually holding it together, even when you couldn’t see it.
We Got Convinced We’re Supposed to Have Enough
Somewhere along the way, we got convinced that a good mother always has enough — enough patience, enough hands, enough bandwidth to meet every need the second it appears. So when we run out, in front of our own kids, we read it as failure instead of what it actually is: being human, in a body, with limits.
But maybe the goal was never to have enough. Maybe the goal is to keep showing up without enough, and let God be the part that’s actually sufficient.
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. — Isaiah 40:29
You don’t have to be the source. You just have to stay in the room. He’s already promising to be strength for the parts of you that have run out.
What Helped Me Survive That Season (and Still Does)
I’m not going to pretend I solved this. I’m still in it. But a few things have made the impossible math feel slightly less impossible:
I stopped trying to “win” both moments at once. Some moments, the baby’s need is louder and more urgent — and that’s not a betrayal of the toddler. Naming it out loud, even just to myself — the baby needs me first right now — took some of the guilt out of the choosing.
I let my toddler help, even badly. Handing her the burp cloth. Asking her to “watch the baby’s feet” while I did something else for thirty seconds. It’s not really help. But it makes her feel included instead of replaced, and that’s worth more than efficiency.
I stopped narrating my failures to myself in real time. That inner voice — you’re not doing this right, you’re not enough — doesn’t make me more patient. It just adds shame to exhaustion. I’m learning to notice it, and gently put it down.
I let the floor be enough. Some days, sitting on the kitchen floor with both kids, surrounded by mess, is the whole win. Nothing got accomplished. Nobody got everything they needed perfectly. But everybody got me, even divided. That counts.
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. — 1 Peter 5:7
Not “manage your anxiety better.” Cast it. Hand it off. He’s not asking you to carry the guilt of not-enough on top of everything else you’re already carrying.
Still Hard, Still True
Some days this season will still feel like too much divided by not enough. That’s not a sign you’re doing it wrong. That’s just what it actually looks like to love two people who both need you completely, at the same time, with only one body.
But the same God who multiplied five loaves and two fish for five thousand people is not intimidated by your one body and two children. He’s not asking you to be sufficient. He’s asking you to stay close — to Him, and to them — and let Him be the part that stretches.
One Small Invitation
The next time you feel like you’re failing both of them at once, try sitting down — literally, on the floor if you have to — instead of standing in the frantic in-between. Let them both reach you there, even imperfectly. That’s not giving up. That’s just meeting the moment honestly.
What’s one moment recently where you felt like you weren’t enough — and what actually happened next? Start there.
Lord, on the days I feel divided in two — pulled between needs I can’t meet at the same time — remind me that You are not. Thank You for being enough when I run out. Help me release the guilt of what I couldn’t do, and receive the grace that’s already covering the gap. Hold my children even in the moments I can’t hold them both. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
