Dear Mama,

In the past, even up until recently, I lived most of my life striving. Do more ... Be better ... Try harder ... It’s exhausting! Being performance-driven and a perfectionist is not an easy combination to live with. I didn’t like being that way, and I didn’t like seeing my boys pick up the habits I was modeling for them.

Thankfully the Lord spoke the words I needed to hear one morning as I read Ephesians 3:19: “and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (NIV).

YES! I want this to be real and evident in my life! ALL the fullness of God. THIS love! HIS love! It’s the kind of love where you can’t fully explain in words just how magnificent it is. I knew grabbing ahold of this verse would be life-changing both for me and my boys.

I asked God to help me break this habit of being the cranky, striving perfectionist! I didn’t want to live as an exhausted mom/superwoman anymore. I realized: Striving leads to stress, but receiving God’s grace and love leads to rest!

I didn’t need to do more; I needed to receive more! So I started saying every morning, “Thank You, Father. Today I receive Your __________ (love, grace, mercy — fill in the blank)." I began to see over time that saying these truths affected my personal outlook, my parenting, my relationships, my everything. They weren’t meaningless words or random declarations. They were true, and the truth is what set me free!

I want to do things well with an excellent heart, but I no longer strive for perfection. I don’t need to. Jesus is that already for me.

I am still growing in this knowledge every day. From time to time, I catch myself or my kiddos striving, but God’s grace is the safest place to come back to.

I pray that you, too, will know and receive the fullness of God and ALL that He is. And if you have never asked Him to be the Lord of your life, I pray today is the day you say, “Be the Lord of my life. Jesus, I choose You over everything else.”

Love,

Angela