I am walking our 2 year old in her stroller inwardly praying that she falls asleep so I can finally get a little break, when I begin to feel tears welling in my eyes as I talk to God. I choke back tears and whisper to Him how sorry I am for my messy parenting. How little patience I have and easily frustrated I sometimes get.

There have been so many moments when I have questioned God’s plan for me to be a mom. It’s not always like that, but in the hard moments I do feel the thread unraveling and I find myself questioning. And I always come back to the same thought. Who am I to question His plan for me and what he saw as my gift(s) to the world? It’s in those moments that I am my most messy because I let the weakness of my human emotions get the best of me instead of letting His love for me guide and see me through.

Being a mom, a parent, is the most out of control I have ever felt in life. More so than when my dad was arrested and our world was turned upside down and I quickly became the breadwinner and decision maker of our family. As crazy as it is to say, I felt more in control then.

I told my husband this morning (he’s on his last leg of a 72 hour shift) that the hardest thing is feeling like any plan I make for the day feels useless due to what feels like unexpected incoming grenades thrown at me at random from our two girls.

The lack of control is my constant inner battle.

Some days I feel like a pro handling parenting the way a good surfer takes on a wave, moving with ease in and through the wave and then the exhilaration felt once you’re out. Some moments though it feels more like carrying a heavy load through a muddy trench. I fall and can’t seem to get through.

It is during my messiest moments that I question and wonder… is life for ME over. Am I done growing, challenging myself and learning new things? Do I just throw myself, the woman in me with other desires other than being the best mom I can be, out the window? Does she disappear? Do her dreams fade and get buried into the night? Am I done?

No. I am being melodramatic. I now I am not done. I stop and search and listen for God’s word, his whisper. And I know it, I feel it. I am not done.

When I allow myself to hear I realize, I am growing, learning, challenging myself. Not always in the way I believed I would, but still possible and happening.

Parenting. Life. It is all messy. That is where the beauty and growth is.