It spills, the way things do when you are in a hurry. Fury crosses my mind—a premonition comes late, slow down. But patience is a lesson I refuse to learn. I mime patience in the slow corners of my life. But as pace picks up—three boys swirling around me, each one urging me in a different direction, my ambitions tugging at fingers to type—I release patience in exchange for an attempt to control. 

Who dares control time? Me, that’s who. I am confident I can do it all.

“I can do it all” rushing whispers through windswept hair, trying to catch up with my hubris. And though I don’t like it, grace comes to me in my failure. Spilled coffee on clean clothes. The urge to be both Mom and SELF. 

To do it all, to be it all—it is close. I can reach it, if I just hurry a little more. And then the one who I call many names, but continues to be one God, asks me a small question that hurts big: “Did I ask you to do it all?”

I weep because I know He has only asked me for one thing—love. Knowing I cannot let go of the list I have made, I bring his request with me as I clean up today’s hurry in the form of spilled coffee.