Can Women Have It All? A Grace-Filled Approach to ProductivitySample

How do you do it all?

This might be one of the most frequent questions women ask one another, as they are struggling to figure out how to align their calendars, to-do lists, goals, and desires. We look at others, thinking they must have it all together and that we don’t have what it takes. We envy the working mom, who seems to always have time to squeeze in a workout and have a healthy dinner on the table by six o’clock each evening. We scroll social media and see the women who’ve started their own companies and have the ability to take time off to travel, and we wonder how it doesn’t all fall apart without them at the helm. Women seem to cheerfully maintain clean and tidy homes and never lose their patience with their children.

We look around us and wonder how other women seem to balance everything so perfectly, when we feel like we’re constantly dropping the ball. Books have been written answering this question and providing us with techniques and tips for maximizing productivity and living lives of passion, all while maintaining a cheerful spirit and a happy family. At the core of these questions, what I think we’re really asking is, “How can I make the most of this one life that I’ve been given?” We look for the secret sauce, the magic formula that’ll tell us the exact steps we need to take to achieve the life we want. The reality is, no one can “do it all”—at least, not at one time. The idea of balance implies that we can and should be giving the same amount of attention to all areas of our lives, but not every area of our lives deserves equal attention. We can’t give equal attention to all areas of our life at once—something must give.

Ephesians 5:16 tells us to make the best use of the time. Our time on earth is finite; therefore we must carefully choose how we’ll spend our limited time, energy, and attention. Rather than seeking to do it all, we should identify what matters most to us. As author Jordan Raynor writes, “Jesus understood his purpose, and that allowed him to take the long list of things he could do and pare it down to the things he knew he should do to finish the work the Father gave him to do (see John 17:4).”7 As we seek to live in the Lord’s time, rather than the world’s, a helpful exercise is to step back and think about the type of woman you want to become.