If You’re Tired of Living Empty…
“I feel like I’m living with a slow leak,”
I told my friend last week as I leaned out the window of the mini-van and waited for soccer practice to end.
I glanced at my watch and calculated the minutes until Hannah’s dance class was over, gazed up the hill at the soccer players and willed them to hurry so I could move on to my next stop.
I reached around the driver’s seat and mindlessly picked pretzel crumbs off the filthy van floor.
While my preschooler chanted nursery rhymes in the backseat, I listened to my friend commiserate about the break-neck pace of spring and her daily battle with exhaustion.
“I know what you mean,” I said, willing the tears in my throat to stay put. “I’m totally drained. Always.”
I reached for her hand, gave it a tight squeeze, and promised to pray her through the rest of the week. She smiled, tucked a wisp of windblown hair behind her ears, and vowed to do the same for me.
My soccer girl, reeking of sweat and dirt, jumped in the front seat, and I closed the window and sped on to my next stop as family chauffeur.
Maggie shifted from chanting to singing, and I tried to still my racing mind to listen.
Lizzy craned her neck to look at her little sister and then flashed Maggie a happy grin.
“Do you know the actions to that song?” big sister asked little.
Lizzy began to waggle her hands in exaggerated waves like she’d learned long ago in Sunday School, and Maggie sang louder.
My twelve-year-old grooved her shoulders in a goofy shimmy, and four-year-old rock-star giggled and clapped in glee.
I paused at a red light, peered at my littlest one in the rear view mirror and ached with the heavy paradox of the moment.
If I was made for life overflowing, why do I feel so empty?
I shifted my eyes from the rear view mirror to the clock on the dash and calculated just how late I would be by the time I arrived at Hannah’s dance class.
I took a deep breath and tried to relax.
The van swelled with off-key crooning.
My cell phone rang, and my son asked if I was coming to pick him up at track practice. I assured him I’d be on my way after I secured our ballerina.
The red light held me still.
I watched a suit-clad man hustle across the intersection, a shiny black coffee mug in hand.
He waved a friendly hello to a woman walking her dog, and a slosh of dark brown liquid jumped from his cup as he raised his hand.
I want that, I thought enviously, a cup overflowing.
Suddenly, God whispered truth to me right there on the corner of Broadway Street and Washington.
You can’t hold abundant life in a cracked cup.
As the light turned green, I suddenly remembered a night beneath our roof long ago when the Lord had told me the same thing.
I hadn’t thought about it for years—that cracked green cup and my green-eyed boy, and the way God spoke through a puddle on my kitchen table.
But as I eased through the green light, I pictured the scene again…
My husband had worked late and was dining on leftovers when three-year-old Josh padded into the kitchen.
Our brown-haired boy climbed up onto his scratched-up wooden chair and eyed his Daddy’s plate of food.
I grabbed a pack of graham crackers from the cupboard, served them up on a Scooby Doo plate, and filled Joshua’s plastic cup with fresh water.
Satisfied, our littlest boy settled in to share a late night meal with the man of the house.
I stood at the sink scrubbing dishes and trying to get a word in with my husband before I collapsed into bed. But Joshua’s antics were distracting me from the conversation at hand.
Every time Rob turned his head to talk to me, my son reached for his daddy’s tall glass of water and sneaked a sip.
Unaware that his glass was being drained, Rob continued to eat as Joshua surreptitiously shared his daddy’s drink.
Finally, I pointed to the bright green cup near the graham cracker box and asked my sneaky son: “Why don’t you drink from your own cup?”
“My cup is empty.”
“But I just filled it up when Daddy came home.”
Joshua shrugged his petite shoulders and lifted the child-sized cup to reveal a clear puddle on the kitchen table beneath it.
Sure enough, the cup was drained thanks to a hairline crack along the bottom.
“Josh,” I said laughing, as I realized the problem. “I could have given you a new cup.”
“It’s okay,” my littlest boy declared. “Daddy has enough for both of us.”
Without realizing it, my son had articulated the secret to abundant life.
And reminded me of why I so desperately need to spend time with my Heavenly Father.
Motherhood is filled with things that crack my cup.
On most days, it feels like my kids take EVERYTHING I’ve got and more.
Even if I begin my day with a hearty dose of hope, I invariably run dry before I fold the last load of laundry or dispense the final good night kiss.
When the day ends in a puddle of good intentions and a sigh of frustration, I am left to battle the question, “Why does my heart feel so empty when my hands are so full?”
I’m not the only one to ever wrestle with that question.
No one ever told me that mothering would require more than I possess,
that at the same time it would be energizing and draining….Loving my children
can fill me up, but some days, it will completely empty my soul. To raise children
means that you are constantly giving—all of your energies, all of your emotion,
all of your time. Often I realize that my well is empty, my mind is numb, and my
heart is heavy. There is nothing left for anyone. I am given out.
—Angela Thomas, Tender Mercies for a Mother’s Soul
In the midst of that disheartening reality is good news: God understands the cracks.
He knows our lives.
He knows the energy it takes to discipline an insolent child, the patience required to calm a fussy baby.
He understands the demands of managing our homes, running carpools and still trying to fan the flame of intimacy in our marriages.
He oversees potty training and goes to baseball games.
He rides along in our crumb-infested mini vans and hovers over our homework helping.
He is not annoyed by our weaknesses, nor is he critical of our flawed attempts to parent with grace.
He understands motherhood completely.
And He longs to refill our souls.
His cup overflows with everything we need if only we’ll make time to sidle up beside Him and take a sip.
In the wise words of one green-eyed boy, “Daddy has enough for both of us!”
Two miles from Broadway Street and Washington, I pulled into another crowded parking lot and waved at my nine-year-old ballerina.
The pick-up line teemed with mini-vans, and my girls waved out the window at friends as they belted out the chorus to that old Sunday School song.
Hannah climbed into the backseat and joined the singing, and before I headed to the middle school to collect my teenager, I flipped open my phone and added one last thing to my crammed calendar.
Because I’m tired of living empty.
10 P.M. Date with Daddy.
I’ll bring my Bible.
And my Father will provide the cup.
“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” —John 4:10
Linking up with Rachel and with Emily at Imperfect Prose.
Bless you, Alicia. This is just what I needed to read today. Thank you for that song, that visual of the cup and for a tender mama heart that knows. I’m thankful for you.
This is where I am…right now. Working on it though. I’ve been reading Jesus Calling and I swear it’s been clogging up the slow leak or in my case, the fast drain of everything dumping out of me.
So, maybe I’m not the only one with a slow leak? I love it when my Pella friends land here. Praying for you!
Thank you.
Alicia, you have such a way of speaking to me. I really needed to hear this today. Thanks for sharing, and reminding me about the only way to be overflowing.
God knows and He fills us with all that is Him when we ask. Thanks for linking up to Imperfect Prose.