Drawing the Line

Excerpt taken from Drawing the Line: How to Achieve More Peace and Less Burnout in Your Life by Kate Crocco

You know what’s really painful? Being completely sure of something, maybe even having a pretty public stance on it, and then realizing that your belief or decision is no longer in alignment with your life and values. Holding on too tightly to what once was can really hold us back from living out God’s fullness for our lives. I bet some of you are living through this internal struggle today— doing all you can not to cave and change your mind about something that once felt so right for you.

I had spent two years anticipating February 2020. I had engaged in conversation after conversation with family, friends, mentors, business besties, my Bible study group, and most of all my public social media community. We would be enrolling our girls in full-time daycare so that I would have the space to really dive back into my career and everything that comes with the launch of a first book. Up until this point, I had been scrappily working with whatever bread crumbs of time I could find outside the part-time childcare hours we had. As much as I loved my girls, I really wanted my career back too. Of course, nothing crazy like before, but just enough to build the momentum again. Pre-kids, I was known for working seventy-plus-hour weeks in my businesses. I had also worked very hard to get back to a mindset of “I can still be a good mom even if I allow others to watch my children so that I can focus on my dreams.” That department was a tough one, and I was still a pretty newish mom at this point.

Life was a whirlwind the first two years of motherhood, finding out we were having our second baby when our first was just nine months old and I was in the midst of full-fledged breastfeeding and raging hormones.

That February, the girls fifteen months and two and a half years old, I remember dropping by my parents’ and them casually asking if we had begun to think about schools for the girls. I literally was just trying to launch a book and get them out of diapers first, but I guess that’s what responsible adults do— plan ahead. And so, of course, I answered with, “Um, not a clue. We will think about it once they’re both out of diapers.” But then my father offered an idea that he thought was brilliant: the H word. You know the thing that all the perfect moms do who devote their lives to the good of their children. Homeschooling. I almost spit out my water. Me? Homeschool? You mean us living on a prairie, wearing matching hand-sewn dresses with Laura Ingalls Wilder braids, baking homemade bread, writing on chalkboard tablets? I chuckled. “No way would I ever want to do that,” I said under my breath. I pushed the stroller home that day, particularly irked that my father would even offer such a piece of advice. If anything, I could see us someday traveling around the world during their school breaks so that I could speak to groups of women. But stay home all day long with nowhere to go? That would literally be my worst nightmare.

Before we move into the nitty-gritty of alignment in this book, it’s crucial that we get everything out on the table by focusing on three very important things. First, in order to step into the fullness and abundance that is available to us in life, we have to get vulnerable. We need to admit what feels uncomfortable to us. And sometimes we also have to release our pride. Vulnerability and pride are like oil and water— they just don’t mix. Second, we need to develop an awareness of the emotions that certain phrases and comments bring up for us. It’s important that we become aware of what irks us, like the homeschooling comment my dad casually brought up, and get comfortable sitting with these feelings and unpacking where they are coming from. And third, we need to develop flexibility in our thinking. As the title of this chapter states, “Never Say Never,” it is important that we release absolutes in order to open ourselves up fully to opportunities that we may have once rejected but are really for us. Before we dive in, I am going to leave you with a verse to read out loud and meditate on. I want you to ask God to soften your heart, help you let down your guard, and open you up to flexible thinking and discernment.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom. 12:2)

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