Sometimes life feels like a to do list.

Spring lists and summer lists.

Workout routines, study schedules, diary entries, and calendars.

Ticking off each item systematically on the list and judging my daily success by the number of lines across the page.

Until.

Until I feel overcrowded.

Until marking off lines, meeting deadlines, and following new regimes stop fulfilling me.

When I remember that it’s empty.

All of it.

The morning devotionals, workouts, diets and schedules. The assignments and the projects. The cleaning and the cooking. The planning and the prepping. The prayer and the worship. The work and the play.

What’s the point if I regard each moment simply as another hour that I’ve successfully got through?

I find myself caught in a cycle of trying to measure my success at life by how well and consistently I perform.

Good things.

Like how time efficient, patient, gracious, loving, diligent, selfless, and forgiving I was that day.

But when evening comes, and I haven’t been all I expected of myself: when there’s entries that haven’t been crossed off on the list, when I wasn’t as kind or as patient as I could have been, or when I wasn’t as productive with an hour as I probably should have been, I find it hard to remember that my worth isn’t measured by my performance.

That God’s love for me doesn’t grow because He’s impressed with how well I did or diminish when I’m less than I should or could have been.

That actually. Maybe I’ve fallen back into striving and doing things in my own strength.

I never try to. I never aim for independence from my Lover or knowingly tell Him that I’m okay on my own.

But it seems that I wind up there, nevertheless.

When worship feels like a performance and prayer feels like I’m exchanging information at a business meeting, I’ve got to go back.

Right back.

First love back.

I’m so thankful for how gently God leads. How lovingly He shepherds.

I know it must be painful for Him to be treated like an entry on a to do list. To have the one who has His gaze rush through conversation with Him and try to get on to the next thing.

I’m learning.

Learning that it’s okay.

All of it.

What I do.

What I don’t do.

Heaven won’t remember my to do lists. Eternity is an eternal state of present-ness. When we’ll have finally learned that we’re adored exactly where we are, that we could never move His love for us, and that we’re free to simply be.

That being is enough.

It’s enough just to be loved
I don’t have to earn Your heart
Just be held, just be myself
I can rest in who You are ’cause
You’re not looking for perfection, and I
Already have Your affection and
It’s enough just to be loved
Just to be loved by You

To be Loved- Lydia Laird

Note for loved ones: I’m aware that this post might feel negative and give the impression that I’m consistently overwhelmed and stressed. I’m not. I’m loving life. I just find myself in these moments sometimes, and I know that I’m not alone in needing to be regularly reminded to stop, breathe, and be. God is so kind. I love that He lets us see our weaknesses, even often. Because it’s there that the call to abide gets louder.