The Myth of Work-Life Balance: The Secret to a Good, Whole Life

“Is this going to work? With you now having a family, can you balance it?”

I remembering feeling something snap inside of me. A snap, a break, a jolted shift in my perspective on what life looked like.

I was a new mom, trying to figure out how to navigate the torrential waters of young motherhood coupled with corporate America. This conversation was where I realized how separate others expected me to keep my work separate from my home life.

I wondered how I was expected to clock-out of Mom Life when I clocked into Work Life.

And I did. For a long time. I hustled and bustled and did what I could to keep Mom Life at home and Work Life in the office.

Until I couldn’t anymore.

It eventually dawned on me that I wasn’t able to always give my whole self to my tasks or expectations and obligations of my job, because of what was waiting for me at home. And at home, I wasn’t able to give my family my whole self, because so much of it was left back at work.

It didn’t add up.

There were pieces of me in each area of my life — work life, mom life, even social life — missing at any given moment while I went about my days, because they were left behind where I wasn’t at.

Work-life balance is a myth.

It assumes that the scales of life will be evenly balanced at all times - both sides perfectly balanced. But we drop pieces from one side of the scale all the time, and the scales tip back and forth depending on any given season of life or scenario we are in.

This tipping and constant shift made me realize that I was viewing my life in a very compartmentalized way, and with the belief that I wasn’t very good at any portion of my life… let alone the whole of my life.

Have you been there? Are you there? Where you look at your life in fragments, not as whole and complete despite all the components inside of it?

But I think we’re ready. Ready to pick up the pieces of our rushed day-to-day and mend them back into a whole life.

Can I share a secret with you? I don’t believe you and I are incomplete and not whole.

I can’t believe it.

I believe we are already whole because Christ is in us. This is our truth, as believers and followers of Christ.

But we need to live it out.

Is it that we have forgotten—or never been told?—who we are and why we’re here? Do we not see all the pieces that make us whole? When I look around, I see things that make my heart hurt and my head angry for the moms of our generation.

I see women who believe hustle is the way to go anywhere, get anything, and be anyone, or women who believe they are what people tell them they are—beautiful, ugly, skinny, fat, hardworking, lazy, simple, complex . . . I see women believing a whole host of things that are straight-up lies.

I’m that woman too. I fall for them, and then — sadly — often live those lies out.

It’s not until I hear a still small voice — one that sounds an awful lot like Jesus — reminding me to look at the big picture. The whole life He’s given me, not just the pieces and fragments I can see up close in the thick of it.

So I ask again, have we forgotten who we really are and why we’re here?

Allow me to remind you, my friend, of who you really are and what makes you whole.

• You are created in the image of God. (Genesis 1:27)

• You are filled with the breath of God. (Genesis 2:7)

• You are not to be shamed. (Genesis 2:25)

• You were created to work and keep God’s creations. (Genesis 2:15)

• You are good. (Genesis 1:31)

You are good, just like that. Because God said so.

Everything that makes up you—the natural, unrefined-by-the-world, real you—is good. The God of completeness doesn’t call anything “good” that isn’t whole and doesn’t reflect Him.

This includes all aspects of our days—the laundry piles we tear down so our families have clean clothes, the sales calls we make to enhance a potential customer’s life, the carpooling we navigate to help another mama out, the late-night emails we answer because we have clients waiting, and the dinner we prepare for the family.

These are all good things He made us for. Not just one or two of them, or whatever we have time for in any given day or season. He has called us to all of it. All of it makes up the whole of our lives and the calling on our lives.

When we accepted Christ into our lives, we become whole. We are no longer the broken and scattered scraps of Eve’s consumed apple. We are finally back to a quality or state of being without restriction, exception, or qualification, just as whole and unprocessed as nature intended. Just like Adam and Eve were whole and complete in the garden with each other and God.

So, no, it’s not time to balance the scale, with mom on one side and everything else on the other. It’s time to throw that scale out because there aren’t two sides to your life. Your life is your one life.

And it is good.

Much love, Kristin | Read more in MoreforMomBook.com