The Elusive Pursuit of Balance

The Friday morning coffee date.

It’s an oasis in the midst of every week. I sit across from my husband with my Cafe Breve and we talk about ALL THE THINGS – ministry, especially our conversations with people, and our children in all of their ages and stages. Sometimes we talk about plans for the future or the latest news from extended family. It’s glorious – but it hasn’t always been this way. Now that we have teenagers, slipping away together like this is not only possible, but also very necessary because the days of everyone going to bed at 8 are long gone.

This last Friday we were deep in conversation when the phone rang. It was a precious couple in our church expecting their second baby. The mama’s preeclampsia was escalating and the doctor had decided to induce today. Could we come collect their 15 month old for the weekend? We gulped the last of our coffee and headed towards their home trying to wrap up our conversation. Then we spent the next few hours frantically reading paperwork on how to accommodate the special diet this little guy was on while trying to make sure our kids and the youth group and leaders had what they needed to head to a youth retreat in another part of the state.

It was chaotic, but I love this – all of it. Life is a messy blur, full of our own children and our church family. Every day is full of needs, the needs of our six children – our teenagers, our school aged kids, our little ones. The needs of our church family – new believers, hurting people, people in crisis, people seeking encouragement, counsel, or just a friend. Sometimes the needs overwhelm me and I start to panic. I never want to neglect the children God has given me, and I don’t want to cause hurt by seeming inattentive to the needs of people in our church.This used to stress me out much more than it does now though. For a long time I saw my kids and our ministry as being pitted against each other. Both were vying for my attention and I had to find a way to keep them “balanced.” 

Balance in my mind looked like a spreadsheet or a carefully filled calendar where I put limits on what time slots ministry is supposed to fit into. But life never quite worked out that way. Sometimes I would set aside time that I was just sure would be ours – and then a crisis would happen. Sometimes I planned and prepared for an event and then a child would get sick. This really bugged me until it occurred to me that there really isn’t a Bible verse for being “balanced.” Titus 2 tells us our husband and children are our priorities and that we are to be “working at home.” But when I Timothy 5 gives the qualifications for widows it describes these Godly women “having a reputation for good works, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work.” I love that, “every good work.” Doesn’t that sum it up? That “every good work” looks different in the different seasons of a woman’s life. But, whether we are changing a diaper or speaking at a conference, it’s all the good work we are called to, and I think God sees those two things as a lot less different than we do. We are living one life for One Master. We don’t need to chop it into bits and try to organize it, define it, or qualify it. We can just offer it all up as worship.

So this is what I propose – ditch the spreadsheet for a dance. My mind goes back to my singular square dancing experience, fourth grade gym class. Even though my knowledge is limited, I do know there is a guy calling out the moves and the dancers follow what he says. And that’s the mental picture I have – God as this dance caller, and I’m just waiting to see what moves He is going to bring out next. What makes dancing art is that it isn’t always the same thing over and over. Sometimes you do-si-do, and sometimes you promenade. Sometimes you allemande left, and sometimes you roll-away-to-a-half-sashay. Sometimes you have a teen in crisis and you back out of everything but the occasional Sunday in the nursery. Sometimes your husband needs you to leave your children in another’s care and go with him on a mission trip across the globe. It’s all a dance and when we step back, we can see the beauty of the big picture

Part of gracious womanhood is seeing all of life as ministry – some takes place in the home, and some outside of it. Every woman has a different rhythm of inside/outside home ministry. All kinds of things can call us more homeward or more outward in different seasons. We will all go through life readjusting to what we can and can’t do with every season God brings.

Now that I’ve painted this beautiful picture of balance being a dance, don’t think I go through life always blissfully letting my plans be changed or never wishing that I could call some of the moves. Sometimes I struggle with God about the rhythm I am dancing to, and I’m not afraid to put in a request for what move we’re going to do next in this dance. I have times where I feel like if I miss one more week of church because my kids are sick, the walls will surely close in on me. I also have times where I’m quite certain that if our family hosts or attends one more event, I will sink to the floor in tears. 

I don’t want to make it sound like I don’t have my finger on the pulse of my kids and my marriage, sensing when we may be in danger and taking action when needed. But the more time goes by, the more I can see that it is undoubtedly God’s will that I love my family well and invest in the family of God around me, and He is for me in this. He’s not trying to put me in impossible situations and see if I’ll sink or swim, and if I’m feeling that way it’s probably a sign that I need to stop and examine if my list of “What Must Be Done” is really coming from Him.

If you have been trying to find that perfect ratio of home to ministry life, you can lay down that struggle.  Your battle is to listen and obey the moves of your Master, not to find and implement the perfect balance. When you love your church family well, your children learn from you and are blessed.  When you love your children and husband well, your church family learns from you and is blessed. You can dance the moves He lays out for you with abandon because what everyone in your life needs most is not the right balance of you, but the limitless abundance of Christ that never disappoints.