It’s been the Week of the Pumpkins around here.  I chaperoned Carson’s first field trip to the pumpkin patch which was so fun (and exhausting! how do you teachers even do it??)…

…and to continue the fall festivities, I took the girls to the slacker “pumpkin patch” (otherwise known as the produce stand down the street) to pick out their own.  I felt a twinge of guilt that I wasn’t taking them to the real deal pumpkin patch this year, but they didn’t seem to mind.  Obviously.

Quite honestly, as sweet as these moments are, I still feel pulled in so many directions these days that I’m terrified I’m not going to remember them.  Because, historically, that’s been my response to these ridiculously crazy seasons of life.  This realization came only recently when it hit me that I could not recall most of last fall when I was absolutely consumed with the final stages of the adoption.  I remember the anguish and stress but not much else.    The same thing holds true for the first two years of our marriage when I was entrenched in the rigors of grad school and Matt was traveling constantly as a consultant.  Sadly, I have very few memories of those days.

This is not something that I’m proud to admit.  And it’s not a trend I want to continue.  I want to remember these days.  And to truly enjoy these moments.  But life has been so full and so rushed recently that I find myself hurrying the kids through the produce-stand-pumpkin-patch experience as a box to check off of our to-do list rather than moments to savor.  To remember.

Just this past week, Matt and I each took personality tests (which revealed once again that we are as opposite as they come. seriously.)  I laughed when I read the summary of my personality which cautioned that I likely “struggle with prioritizing things appropriately, due to ranking all items as the ‘most important’.”  They nailed it.  I have to fight this.  I must give myself grace in this season.  To be okay with less-than-perfect.  To resist the lie that I’m a failure for not taking my girls to the “real” pumpkin patch.  To say “no” once and for all to the comparison game and the “mommy wars”.   It’s stupid, but it’s my reality.

Even more importantly, though, I have to readjust my focus on what that “most important” item is.  Because certainly, it can’t be everything, as that all-too-revealing personality test warned.  It can’t be a clean house or pats on the back at work or my child’s school performance.  It’s gotta be the gospel.  What’s already been done.  The fact that, though I can never be enough or do enough, my salvation is secure in what Christ has done on my behalf.  My identity is in Him, and I’m covered in His grace.  That’s what’s most important.  And, though the to-do lists abound and the workload overflows, if that’s what’s firmly established as the cornerstone of my thoughts and plans, everything else will surely fall into place.