One reason you might be tired

Dear Young Mom,

Do you feel tired?  Hahahahaha, I crack myself up.  Of course you do!  Many factors contribute to the universal exhaustion we all feel, and chief among them is that we don't sleep much at night anymore, due to little ones crying, nursing, having bad dreams, etc.

Even if you were to get a good night's sleep, though -- and don't you want to just shout "Hallelujah" on the mornings you wake up and realize NO ONE woke you up last night?? --  I bet you'd still be tired.  And here's one reason why:  you have more "needs" now than you did before you were a mom.

A diagram that got lodged in my brain sometime during the ol' school days was Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.  (My theory is that this diagram shows up in about 60% of all textbooks every written, so you may have seen it.)  To refresh your memory, it looks like this:

The theory basically states that you need to fulfill the needs at the bottom of the pyramid before you can start focusing on the ones above.  In other words, if you're starving, your esteem needs are really not your concern.

(I realize there are some problems with this theory and a lot of people don't like it, but just bear with me here)

What happens when you become a mother, though, is that this pyramid suddenly becomes a lot taller.  It looks something more like this:



There have been many days that I've been running around making sure everyone got fed and to their naps on time, and only realized at 12:30 that I had never even had breakfast!

Trying to attend to all of those rungs in the hierarchy is enough to make anyone tired.  And it's enough to make anyone feel very NEEDY.

One verse that I memorized early on in my years of motherhood was Psalm 40:17.  "As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me."  The Lord is thinking about you right now!  He knows all your needs -- and all your kids' needs -- and He will take care of you.

In fact, that's the next part of the verse:  "You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God!"  He will not be late, but will carry you through even now, in your fatigue.  Yes, it can be a weary road and the needs may be great, but it's then that we get to see Him show up with even greater strength than we noticed before.  Our needs are greater -- but He's even greater than our needs!