I Want it All

As a teenager I went to a Broadway play with my mother called, "Oh, Baby!" It was about three different women who each found out they were going to have a baby. The big finale went "I want it all" drumming home the idea that having a family shouldn't stand in the way of a woman's personal ambitions.

When I had my first child, although I adored my sweet baby, I struggled with feeling lonely and intellectually underwhelmed. I thought that I'd stay home full-time for those first years but looked forward to starting a career when they started school. I even worked on a number of part-time venues but inevitably found myself pulled back home because of the needs of my children. Writing is no different. Even now I struggle with walking away from the computer when they come home after school. It is confining, even frustrating, but essential.

The other day my sister emailed with these same feelings but said she had found great comfort in the last verse of "Sweet is the Work" which goes, "Then shall I see and hear and know all I desired and wished below, and every pow'r find sweet employ in that eternal world of joy." There is no earthly way to have it all, in order to be the sort of mother, wife, writer, professional, citizen or individual we want to be- there will be things we need to sacrifice. But what comfort and joy we can have in knowing that in Christ comes "every good thing!" All our righteous ambitions will eventually be fulfilled if we hold fast and endure.