Project Family

Remember when you were little and your mom was basically superwoman? Your dad superman?

I’m sure they didn’t feel like that, but I think it used to be very common for women to not ask for, or accept help, believing instead that it was better to just tough it out! Do it myself! Be the helper!

Even today I find myself furiously cleaning before friends come to play and visit. Or offering to make meals when I know very well I don’t have plans for my own family yet! Or when someone asks, “how can I help?” I brush it off and insist that “I’m fine! We’re fine! Everything is fine!”

But let’s be honest- everything is NOT fine! There is not one person I know who has it all together. Not one woman who can do it all and not feel the intense drain on their spirit and body. It’s just not possible.

We are not meant to do it all by ourselves or to tough it out alone.

Sometimes I worry that my family will become a “project family” in the church. I worry that it will seem like we need extra attention, or pity for our circumstances. This makes me want to do it ALL by myself. To serve and smile and sing and make and Do. It. All.

And then I remember the precious Holy family. A pregnant, unwed teenager, a man who almost denied her in marriage, and a baby born in the lowest of places-fit only for animals.

We are all project families. We are broken and battered and weathered and worn. Some suffer in secret and others wear their trials on their sleeves, but we are ALL project families.

We are meant to act as angels AND to allow others to minister to us as angels.

We are meant to be spiritually tough AND to wrestle and direct every question to the Lord in prayer.

We are meant to seek the one in need AND to be the one in need.

We are meant to be a family, one big human family. One big project that only succeeds if we work together and help one another.

God loved us, so he sent His son to the best project family out there.

So let’s get to work.