This date night with my husband of twenty years didn’t turned out as I had planned. I had hoped that we would be enjoying hamburgers and fries and running errands like old married couples do. But as I took my shower at 5 PM I realized that I would not be going out at all. A migraine had ravaged my body earlier in the day and taking a  shower completely exhausted me. I sadly shared with my husband that he would need to go out alone and run the errands because my body needed to rest.  I felt like such a failure.

The Proverbs 31 woman is one who provides for the needs of her household and I couldn’t even go out to the grocery store or CVS.  I want to be able to put healthy meals on the table and shop for my family and go out on a date with my husband.  But in this season there are times when my body won’t allow me to do those things.  So I feel like I have failed my husband and failed my family and failed in my responsibilities.

Do you ever feel like a failure too?

As women, we are trying to meet a lot of high expectations. We expect that will be able to keep a tidy home and keep up with the laundry and pay the bills on time. We expect that will be able to have successful careers and earn a good living.  If we are married, we expect to be loving and attentive wives, too.  We expect that will be able to meet the needs of our children, running them to and fro and making sure they do their homework.

We expect that will be able to do all of this with a smile on our face and a good attitude in our hearts and without raising our voices.

But sometimes things don’t go as planned.  Often we can’t meet expectations, our own or those of others. Our house is a wreck. We yell at our children. The bills get paid late. We fuss at our husbands. We don’t perform well in our jobs.  And let’s not even talk about the laundry.  We look at other women who seem to be doing all of these things with ease and we wonder what is wrong with us. We compare ourselves to the perfect ones and we feel like a hopeless mess.

We feel like failures.

As I lay on my bed with my broken body and I search for hope, I ask God how He feels about my failure.  Surprisingly, I don’t feel any condemnation and I don’t hear Him calling me a failure. The devil accuses me and it is his lies that I’m hearing and choosing to believe.

It is the devil that say I’m a failure, not God.  

When God looks at me, He sees my heart. He sees that I desire to be a good mother. I desire to be a supportive and loving wife. I desire to meet the needs of my family and friends.  I’m just doing the best that I can with what I’ve got.

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God knows our desires to be Proverbs 31 woman. But He also knows that we live imperfect lives in an imperfect world. Even though we want to respond in love, we snap. Even though we want to serve, we get tired and exhausted. Even though we want to plan great things for our families, we get overwhelmed.  Even though we want to be perfect and make everyone happy, we fail.

And when we fail, His grace is sufficient for us.

Friend, in your weakness, in your failure, in all the areas where you feel like you don’t measure up, God’s grace is in abundance there.  He gives strength to you when you are weary. He gives hope to you when you are hopeless.  When you that feel overwhelmed, God rushes in.   You can rest in knowing in every area where you feel like we are a failure, God’s grace makes up for where you are insufficient.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” 2 Corinthians
12:9

Tomorrow is a new day, with new opportunities to lean on God’s grace to help us in our weaknesses.  We are not failures.

What about you?  Are there areas where you feel like a failure?  I would love to know so that I could pray for you.

Sharing is caring. If this post encouraged you, will you share it on Facebook so that it could bless your friends,too? Thanks for helping me to reach more struggling women with encouragement, hope, and grace.