Conversations with Shelly: Be gentle

We are rounding up our time with Shelly. The last question I asked her was if she could go back in time, what advice would she give to her younger self. I loved the powerful simplicity of what she said. She said “to be gentle.”

 

The challenges

For Shelly, life was pretty messy and complicated during those beginning years with the girls. First, she was taking care of two girls with different challenges. As she puts it “ she had one [daughter] who had physical needs and another, who didn’t connect with the world and we didn’t know how to connect with her [sic].” This in itself was challenging.

 

But Shelly was also pretty much on her own, figuring everything out as she went. She didn’t have the benefit of a social worker, or case worker guiding or directing her on next steps. She had to learn everything on her own and with two girls with unique needs that can be overwhelming.

 

In addition to figuring out how to do life with two girls with disabilities, Shelly had her own ideas about the future. Her goal was to change the world. She wasn’t going to allow the label of disability to prevent her girls from achieving whatever they wanted. She was going to make their dreams come true. If they wanted to stay in school until they were 21. She was going to make it happen. If they wanted to get married. She was going to make sure that would be possible. The word impossible didn’t exist in the future she envisioned.

 

The solution

But to achieve her goals, Shelly was pretty hard on herself. She had to be. She needed to make sure the girls received whatever services they needed to live their best life. She expected a lot from herself. But demanding this level of perfection wasn’t limited to her role as mom. She demanded it in other areas of her life as well.

 

In her job, she had to be an employee her company could rely on. At home, she had to provide a loving home for her husband and her kids. For her family, she strove to be the loving daughter/sister they needed her to be. She worked hard on being everything for everybody.

 

Although she confessed, she wasn’t a good friend in those days. Because she just didn’t have the energy to pour into her friends like she wanted to. But in every other area of her life, Shelly expected nothing less than perfection from herself.

 

Mistakes weren’t an option for her because there was too much at stake. She had to be on top of everything. Otherwise, she’d disappoint the people who rely on her.

 

The real issue

Now Shelly looks back at that young mom and realizes everything she was doing was because she was overwhelmed and desperately trying to fix her life. Trying to bring some order to her chaotic world. But deep down she was really scared. Scared of failing…scared of not being enough…scared of letting people down. She was afraid if she stopped for one minute everything would come crashing down.

 

Today Shelly looks at that young mom and says “It’s okay. You can relax. Take a minute. It’s okay to mess up. It’s okay to be quiet.”

 

Shelly makes a good point. We don’t need to fill our life with doing. We don’t even need to change the world. Sometimes we just need to relax and be gentle with ourselves.

 

Changing the focus

But Shelly takes it one step further and points out, it was never about us and what we can do for our children. Instead, she says “it’s what God want[s] to do through us and for us.”

 

We don’t need to conform our children to a certain mold before God can use them. He uses them exactly the way they are. After all, He created them and brought them into this world at exactly this moment in time for a reason.

 

Be gentle with others

But it’s not just being gentle with ourselves, Shelly also reminds us to be gentle with others. For example, our kids. We can’t save them but we can take time to enjoy them. It’s so easy to let services and therapies blind us to the fact they’re still children. It’s important to make time to enjoy them and be gentle with them.

 

Being gentle also extends to our spouses. No one is perfect. We all make mistakes and this includes our spouses. They are also adjusting and learning to live in this new normal. So be gentle as they learn to adapt.

 

It also means people in general. Be gentle with our interactions with others, afford them some grace.

 

What Shelly is learning

When it’s all said and done Shelly is learning it’s God who fills our cups. We don’t need to figure out ways to fill it ourselves. If you’re a follower of Christ, God replenishes us every morning. Because “He has a deep reservoir  of fullness for [each of us]”

 

What Shelly’s saying is if we follow Him, God will give us more than enough to accomplish the task He’s assigned us. This doesn’t mean it’ll always be easy. It won’t. Sometimes, it may be very hard and we may feel overwhelmed. But we can move forward with confidence knowing we will never be depleted. God’s reservoir runs deep and it never runs dry. Rest in the knowledge, He will always replenish us.

 

So be gentle on yourselves and others knowing God’s  more than enough to take care of us.