Bedraggled...to LOVED

I woke this morning with the same burden I've been carrying the last couple of days. Well, it's been esp. heavy the last couple of days. The burden of me. Where am I going? What's all this unrest and sadness in me about? I need to be a better wife. Can I manage another week of school? What about school next year? What about church? Maybe if I could just go to church and be a mouse. Maybe if I could move away out in the middle of nowhere where with land, and streams and hills. Maybe if I could own that beautiful horse.
Scanning down over Facebook this morning, everything translated in the same way. Maybe if I would do more generous Christian things. More caroling. More gift baskets. Maybe if I could have as many children as "God would bless me with" and still be a happy, sweet mom. Maybe if I had MORE. More space. More opportunities. This school shooting in CT, I should be loving my kids more. Maybe if I were a missionary in a far away place and part of a revival, bring droves of people to Christ. All these things I should DO! Can I keep it together? Can I even continue with the measly bit I've BEEN accomplishing? And........am I even legit?
All this, in a unconscious burden. Carrying, carrying....carrying. Heading into a new week, trying not to think about how bedraggled I'm feeling. The cares of the weekend. Was it even a break? From school ya, but def not from life. But I hold it in. Hold out.
Then I see something and my heart stops. My breathing is tense. Is it true?? Someone understood. When I was holding it in tight, someone gave it to God? And...and just loved. Tears. My head in my hands. Sobbing like a baby. Relief. I don't have to be strong. I am not alone. My burden is legit. Not legit to be carried, but legit as in- real. Life IS painful. And I AM not what I should be. All this sorrow comes rolling out in giant sobs of relief. There is love! There is core-level understanding. Where there's love, it's OK to be honest about pain. The burden is not mine to carry. God is bigger. Life is in my Father's hands and somehow I tried to carry it. Foolish, silly me. I'll never be everything!! I am just Mary. My expectations for myself, for others all wiped clean by God's grace. All the grime washed off. I picture myself washing off my daughter's pink tea pot after she played with it in the mud outside our front door. The mud is running down. Off. Down the drain. It's just mud. I'll soon put it back in her hands,  pretty pink tea pot. She's waiting eagerly for me to make it new.
 If I make it big, or if I am forever small, all is beside the point. In fact, what IS big or small? It's not my agenda or responsibly. I'm Mary. Just Mary. Loved and ready to be used by the One who loved me.
I've still got life to figure out. But it's not my responsibility to figure it out. I'm saying yes to God, to Love. Back in the hands of my daughter, pink and new. Ready to be put to use. My heart smiles when I think of my sleepy, warm baby that's going to come shuffling down the hall very soon. It's another day at my house. Another week. Schooling. Mommying. Wife-ing. ;) I'm just Mary, but I have LOVE on my side. He is GOD.  In me. Holding me. Coming out through me. GOD is love. I worship.