I pulled up to the stop sign not far from my neighborhood. Music floated through the car like fog – not loud enough to be truly heard, but not quite soft enough to equate silence. The sun was shining. I turned right at the stop to meet a friend for walking at the mall in what turned out to be a Friday ritual. In the back seat was my new baby, my first-born son. No other children yet to grace the spots behind me. One year earlier, I was standing at a white board teaching phonics and double-digit subtraction with twenty-four sets of eyes on my every move. And then there was one. Just one tiny set of eyes that watched me.

This was the day it hit me.

I was made for this.

I’d dreamed of becoming a mother. From the day we first married, I prayed – God, please allow me to be a stay-at-home mom. And He did. My stop sign moment, that point in time I realized I was following God’s calling, was at the corner of Simonton and New Hope Road. Does God have the same intentions for every woman blessed enough to become a mother? No. He has different plans for each of us. But I knew God had called me there.

Fast forward eight years and two more babies. I’m up to my armpits in laundry, baby toys, and school projects. You could write your name in the dust on my dresser. My garden tub has a brightly colored boat and crew in one corner and four of Barbie’s dancing princesses in the other. My way small TV has handprints across the front and I’m pretty sure there is a Kix cereal stuck on the back of my leg.

At my desk, where I rarely find time to write, there are love notes from the kids alongside the unpaid bills coming extremely close to being due.

I’m tired, my house is dirty, and I’m in desperate need of a shower. There are days when I just want to pull my hair out – one by one. (I’ll start with the grey ones.) But then God reminds me, You were made for this. And He takes me back to that place in the car with the music and the baby, and He helps me to remember.

I was made for this.

What is it that God has called you to do? What were you made for? If you too have been plucking out your hair and wondering what you’re doing, go back to that place where you first realized it. The place you stopped because you heard your Father whispering…

You were made for this.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11 NIV