The Value of Constraints | Fellow Alma Wolf '23
If you ask any of my friends, they would tell you I’m a go-go-go type of gal. Catch a glimpse of my Google calendar (which I often try to shield from disconcerted eyes) and you too might agree–I often fill my days, which sometimes start as early as 5:15, with workouts, classes, ROTC training, coffee with friends, homework, meetings, and other activities stacked back-to-back. I don’t arrange this intentionally, I just find myself to be rather busy doing all the things I want to do. There are so many things I want to do!
In the past, my packed schedule hasn’t seemed like a problem. But as the semesters wear on, and especially as my ultimate semester has come to an end, I’ve noticed how running in different directions and trying to do it all actually makes me much less able to do anything well. I’m exhausted in my classes, can’t fully engage with the girls I disciple, and doze off as I try to pray and spend time in the Word. When I view my time as unlimited, I ignore my God-given physical and emotional limits.
My desire to do it all extends beyond the day-to-day. Even though I’m set to commission into the Air Force as a missileer shortly after graduating, I contemplate different career paths, wondering if I’m called to be a teacher, a nurse, a missionary, a diplomat, a prison minister, a journalist. I’ve grown up in a culture that tells me I can do anything, at any time, and that I would be wasting my potential not to shoot for the stars and follow my heart. As a result, I’ve often worried that somehow, I’m messing up God’s plan for my life and am not living out what He has called me to.
At the beginning of our year as Horizons Fellows, we read an article by Kate Harris called “Constraint and Consent: Career and Motherhood.” Harris is responding to an article in The Atlantic called “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” and Harris discusses the tension that modern women feel between wanting to have a high-powered career and wanting to be a present mother. Harris is frustrated by the framework of “balance” that’s frequently offered to women, emphasizing how attempting to balance anything is exhausting, and often leaves one feeling overextended and unable to do anything well.
Harris describes how limits, specifically the limits inherent in being a new mother, clarified her purpose. She writes, “Rather, paradoxically, I found that the new constraints on my time and energies helped me to see my true loves and unique responsibilities more clearly.” She continues, “Where my mind was once consumed by a never ending calculus of hypothetical scenario- planning, my life now is made rich by a number of actual, ordinary scenarios and circumstances which root and orient me in my life and work in a way that grants tremendous freedom and purpose.”
As I’ve contemplated different career paths and wondered about my calling, Harris’ words are wonderfully refreshing. A wide array of options can feel paralyzing, and she illuminates how constraint is not limiting, but freeing. Committing to one particular path allows me to pursue something wholeheartedly, to live out the ordinary acts of faithfulness that God calls us to throughout scripture, and to be free from endlessly asking, “what if?” I’m reminded of the words from Psalm 16, where the psalmist writes, “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.”
Boundaries are pleasant indeed. This truth is helpful both day to day and as I think about the trajectory of my life. My limitedness is a blessing as I plan my days, because it gives me the freedom to be present. I don’t need to worry about accomplishing a million things in a day; in fact, I can’t! There are so many things I want to do, but I must choose, and that makes me delight all the more in how I spend each hour.
This is true as I think about my life’s vocation, too. Harris’ experience, along with embracing models in scripture, also allowed me to dismiss the lurking, unbiblical fear of not achieving my “potential.” I desire to have a family, and this manifests in how I think about motherhood: being a stay-at-home mom is a deeply worthwhile vocation, one that generations of faithful women have embraced. But the freedom found in boundaries is true for any work. The Lord has promised to be with me wherever I go, and I don’t have to worry that I’ve messed something up because God is sovereign. I need not wonder whether I ought to be doing something else, because the reality is, I am mercifully limited to being in one place at one time, and I am called to daily faithfulness in that place, to working heartily as if for the Lord and not for man (Col 3:23).
Ultimately, I do have to choose how I’m going to spend my days. That imposes the beautiful constraint to embrace whatever God has called me to in each season. And recognizing my own limitedness allows me to glorify all the more He who is gloriously unlimited in power, majesty, and grace. I will continue to pray the words of Psalm 143: “Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground” (Ps 143:8).