I saw a sign while shopping not long ago that said, “I don’t have a row or any ducks, but I’ve got chickens.”
And honestly? I felt understood.
Because I am, in fact, a chicken-obsessed farm girl with fifteen baby chicks on the way through USPS. Twenty, really, because apparently they send extras. There are already seven birds cozily settled at home in their hand-built, personally designed chicken coop and run.
I have chickens. That part is handled.
But the ducks? The neat little rows?
I spend a whole lot of energy trying to convince you I have those, too.
I want you to see the girl who has it all together. The strong one. The one who somehow manages everything.
“How does she do it?”
There is a part of me that wants you to wonder that. That’s uncomfortable to admit, but it’s true.
What I’m less comfortable letting you see is the laundry piled so high that thinking about it makes me freeze. The kitchen counters covered in sippy cups, school papers, and all the evidence that people actually live here. The dishes in the sink. The unmade bed. The tasks I keep moving from today’s list to tomorrow’s.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, if you ask me how I am?
“I’m fine.”
Those words come so easily.
“I need help” takes a little more out of me.
Maybe because accepting help means letting someone see what I haven’t managed. Maybe because I’ve gotten so used to being capable that I don’t know how to be cared for without feeling like I should apologize.
I can offer you grace all day long, sister.
I will sit beside you and remind you that you are one person. That you are carrying a lot. That your worth has nothing to do with the dishes in your sink. I will mean every word.
Then I’ll go home and look at my own sink like it’s evidence against me.
Why is the kindness I offer so freely to other people so hard to receive for myself?
I hold myself to a standard I would tell you is unreachable. Then, when I inevitably can’t reach it, I pile guilt on top of exhaustion.
I should have done more.
I should have planned better.
I should be able to handle this.
According to whom?
That’s the question I’m sitting with lately.
Who decided that being a good mother meant keeping a home that barely looks lived in? Who decided that being strong meant never needing anything? And when did I start treating every unfinished task as a statement about who I am?
I like a clean home. I like order. I like knowing where things belong.
But I’m beginning to wonder how often I’m asking those things to give me something they can’t: the reassurance that I am doing enough. That I am enough. That nobody could look too closely and find me lacking.
Because there is always another load of laundry.
If that’s where I’m looking for permission to feel okay, I may be waiting forever.
Then there’s the part about control.
I say I trust God, and I mean it. But I also spend a lot of time trying to anticipate every need, prevent every problem, and hold every loose end tightly enough that nothing can unravel.
Sometimes I catch myself treating surrender like one more assignment.
Wonderful. Now I need to get better at letting go, too.
Even grace can become something I think I’m supposed to do perfectly.
But when I think about Jesus inviting the weary to come to Him in Matthew 11, I have to stop and consider who that invitation is for.
The weary.
The ones who haven’t figured out how to carry it all.
Me, standing in the kitchen with a full sink and a mind that won’t settle.
I don’t have to finish everything before I can come.
Lately, I’ve noticed tension in my body, too. Tight shoulders. A clenched jaw. The feeling that I’m still bracing for something even when I finally sit down.
I don’t know how much of it is connected to everything I’m carrying, but it has made me pay attention. I’ve gotten very practiced at saying I’m fine. I want to get more honest about whether I actually am.
And I don’t want that honesty to become another reason to shame myself.
I want to be able to say, “This is a lot,” without immediately following it with, “But other people handle more.”
I want to accept help without preparing an explanation for why I needed it.
I want my children to hear me speak kindly about their mama. To see that grown-ups have limits, too. To know they can be loved deeply in a home where the laundry occasionally occupies its own zip code.
I’m still learning what that looks like.
Maybe today it looks like asking for help with something specific. Maybe it looks like doing one load and letting that count. Maybe it looks like sitting down with my family while a few things remain undone.
There will still be responsibilities tomorrow. I know that.
But I would like to stop making every ordinary mess mean something terrible about me.
I don’t have a neat row of ducks.
I have chickens. Children. A home full of life. Responsibilities I care about and limits I’m learning to acknowledge.
And I have a God I can come to honestly, even when all I have to say is, “I’m tired, and I don’t know how to loosen my grip.”
That feels like a place to begin.
Lord, help me notice the expectations I’ve mistaken for Your voice. Teach me to take responsibility for what is mine without believing everything depends on me. Help me receive kindness, accept help, and speak to myself with the tenderness I so readily offer someone else. Meet me here, in this unfinished day. Amen.
