Overwhelmed feelings in writing...

There's a few times as I go thru the week that I think to myself: Am I all that I can be right now? 

Sometimes at the end of a day I look and I see all the things that still need to be done, and I wonder, am I keeping myself from accomplishing my full potential? Not just as an employee, but as a Mom, wife, sister, friend? Every once in a while I feel so incompatible for the tasks that I have in my everyday life, and I am so prone to feel like a failure, even tho I know that's not how I'm supposed to feel. It takes me a long time to get back up on my feet after I mess something up. 

I think back on my life, when I was at home still, working 14 hour days at the greenhouse, coffee shop, splitting wood, herding sheep, cutting grass, I see how much I used work to distract me from how I was doing spiritually. I was the kind that rarely got mad. But when I did, I got TONS of work done. My sister used to tease me, saying that she kinda liked when I would get mad because I would get the work of 4 people done. I used hard work to get my frustrations out of my system. Someone once said, "We're often unhappy because we remember the past being better than it really was, the present more difficult than it should be, the future bleaker than it really is." 

To be honest, my childhood wasn't all that bad. It was my teenage years that were rough. My spirituality was shaped under hard circumstances, but for some reason, God took me out of really bad things and sent me to learn how to completely lean on Him and trust Him without reserve. I no longer had work to lean on to distract me. I actually had to sit still and learn to be quiet. Do you realize how uncomfortable it is to listen to the voices that you've shut up for years? 

But I dealt with them. And after cleaning up my heart and thoughts and life, I re-learned to truly live life as God meant me to. I've always loved to serve. And now I'm serving in ways that I didn't know existed. How could I know that teaching our son to color and recognize numbers is serving a higher purpose? What I didn't know is that God never intended me to stop serving, He merely raised the bar; He raised the level of how I served. When I was at home I shut out so much.. But now I look into Micah's eyes and the strong resolve in me rises up to give him the best that I can. The awesome thing is... God put that in me. The high calling of being the best that I can be for our son and my husband: This is the way that I can fulfill the longing I have to serve. I have potential. 

Thanks, Jesus.