Some days end with a quiet ache — the lesson that fell flat, the conversations rushed, the to-do list still waiting. When you’re leading a classroom, gathering your kids around the kitchen table for math practice, or holding it all together at home, you know that low hum — the feeling you didn’t quite measure up today.
We spend so much time focused on the finish line that we forget to celebrate the steps along the way. My classroom motto is: Celebrate the process, not just the product. Growth matters more than grades. Effort matters more than perfection.
But outside the classroom, I forget. I measure my worth by outcomes — not by the journey of becoming. For a long time, I let guilt have the final word. I failed at __________ today — fill in the blank: parenting, teaching, loving well. But I’m learning to meet these moments with something better than shame: curiosity.
When the heaviness settles, I pause and ask, What am I really feeling? Instead of spiraling, I try a different approach:
1.) I didn’t meet my expectations today because I chose to __________ instead.
- Watch a movie with my son instead of tackling my inbox.
- Catch up with my high schooler on her latest tech project instead of placing the grocery order.
- Listen to middle school “tea” instead of folding the laundry.
2.) What did I say “yes” to today?
- Lingering a little longer with a friend who needed more kindness than I first realized.
- Saying yes to one more round of bedtime stories, even when quiet felt like the thing I needed most.
- Trading my downtime for car rides and pickup lines, because their day still needed me.
3.) Maybe what I really needed was rest — and that’s okay.
- Rest looked like: Reading in bed. Sneaking in 20 minutes at the piano before dinner. Or taking a quiet walk outside, letting the wide open space clear my head.
The more I practice this, the more I retrain my mind toward grace instead of guilt. Neurons that fire together, wire together — a simple truth from neuroscience. Fire negative, wire negative: Pair failure with shame, and your brain will learn to live there. Fire positive, wire positive: Practice gratitude, and your brain will learn to see goodness.
When we turn our minds toward truth and grace, we don’t just change our attitude — we change the patterns of our hearts. God didn’t create us just to grind — He created us to delight.
So I look back: Opening our home as a place where friends and family feel seen and loved. Dropping off dessert for a neighbor learning to navigate life with a newly expanded adoptive family. Listening to my kids instead of rushing through the to-do list. Encouraging a student’s family who just needed a little extra support.
Small, faithful steps that please Him. And I tether myself to what’s true: I’m not defined by what I accomplish. I’m anchored by what Christ has already done.
If today you feel like you’re not enough, pause. Be curious. Ask better questions. God is just as present in the becoming as He is in the completion. You don’t have to carry it all — you just have to stay close to the One who carries you.
It’s less about the to-do list, and more about the next yes.
In Your presence there is fullness of joy. — Psalm 16:11
Grace in the Disarray 