YOU CANNOT CARE ABOUT EVERYTHING.

Say it with me now.  You can’t care about everything.  One more time…

I read this in a book or on a blog somewhere sometime ago and it’s funny cuz it’s been some of the most profound reading I’ve done in a long while.  Which is sad too, cuz it kind of makes me feel like I’m lazy or giving up because I love it so much and repeat it to myself daily.  All day.

You can’t care about everything.

But WHY you may ask can you not care, aren’t we supposed to care?  It’s sounds a little selfish at first thought…  but let’s just recap what’s going on right now on a typical Wednesday night:

Laundry, spelling words, raising kids, feeding kids, work, ministry, following God, being a good neighbor, loving up on my husband, supporting my friends, helping my parents, and so on…

I guess I do need to care about these things, laundry ain’t gonna fold itself (but seriously technology can we get on this?), but it’s the layers of caring that I have come to realize is where the true freedom resides.  It’s good I tell ya, good.

You see it comes down to layers.  There are layers of caring about stuff, when I figure out which layers make sense and which don’t, it gives me freedom to really care only about the things I want to care the most about!   {stick with me here for a minute}

Let’s take, for example, raising kids.  I will pray for and with them, make sure they are fed well, assist with school as much as I can, and facilitate some play and extra activities that makes sense for our family dynamic at each season.  What I cannot care about is…perfect outfits for school or church (I will care on major holidays and that is all), perfect grades and performance at school (I will parent them to the best of their abilities and try my darndest to not let unrealistic expectations creep in), perfect diets (I will let them buy lunch from time to time because I can’t care about everything and they think it’s awesome), perfect manners and behavior (I am not saying I’m going to let a bunch of heathens run around town, but also, I will not blow a gasket if they miss a please or thank you and maybe make way too much noise out in public….I care about their hearts and character, I will parent to that, but give grace to them and myself that we are not perfect)

Here is where I know it’s not laziness, but a real call of action:

I just want to care so badly.  So much tugs at my heart that it can be overwhelming.  I know I need to find God’s guidance in this.  I know He has created me to care, but also, He has given me specific talents to work with and I cannot squander them flouncing around aimlessly trying to solve all of the world’s great dilemmas.  I needed to pick something and get busy.  We all need to pick SOMETHING and get busy.

And I know there is a great hope in this.

I believe that in the end, where I might let go of some of my caring, others will be picking it up.  They have now let go of some of the things that they didn’t need to care so much about, making room for more caring people to step up.  They in turn, are able to amp up what they really care about.  God will fill in the gap between the layers of caring, and take care of this great world of ours with the perfect people for each and every issue out there.  And so, as naive as it might sound, I believe God has made people to care about everything there is to care about.  Hence the idea that I don’t have to care about everything because God already has it all figured out.

So with these few precious things I care so deeply about, I have the freedom and a richness of life that is so peace bearing.  I can truly celebrate the women in my life doing amazing things,  caring about their stuff with pure joy and excitement.  I no longer feel bad that I’m not on the PTO, La Leche League, coaching the soccer team, foster parenting, organic gardening, etc.  I can’t.  I just can’t.  So thank you and amen those of you that do these things we need you to do these things!  I’ll do mine, and together this world can be everything God intended it to be for us.