I’ve always been good at racing games.
In the early days of our marriage, my husband and I used to occasionally go to the local mini golf and arcade near our apartment. I can’t remember the name of it, but there’s a game where each of you actually get into a “car” and go head-to-head on the racetrack.
It didn’t take many rounds of this before he was forced to grudgingly acknowledge my utter navigational superiority.
So, when Mario Kart came out a number of years ago, I was all over it. It became a bit of a family obsession (except for my then-13-year-old daughter who was clearly too cool for such activities).
The new wore off after a while and Mario Kart was pushed to the sidelines. But recently, he’s made a comeback around my house.
Sometimes lessons come from odd sources. This recent Mario Kart revival made me realize that it’s given me more than stress relief and family bonding over the years. Mario Kart has taught me some important lessons about motherhood:
Focus on your own race.
I may be able to dominate my husband on the race track, but my son crushes me. It’s hard not to focus on the competition. But every time I began looking at where he was and thinking about how behind I was, I quickly crashed and burned.
Comparison in motherhood is deadly, too. I try not to, but I do it. Maybe you do, too. I look at my friends with the quiet and seemingly effortlessly compliant children and wonder what I’m doing wrong. I consider other mothers’ life circumstances, compare them to mine and wonder how they got off so easy (which is never true, by the way).
Here’s the problem: Comparison shifts our focus from actually driving the car we’ve been given. It becomes about how we can get into someone else’s car. Because their’s is clearly shinier, better maintained, easier to drive, etc.
Even it that’s true (which it almost always isn’t), we’re never going to drive their car. Envying what they seem to have robs our souls. It paralyzes us and makes us bitter and discontent. We each have to drive our own very unique mothering race — one that looks like no one else’s. Which is why it’s so crazy to compare!
The more I concentrate on the path of motherhood I’ve been given and focus on drawing on God’s power to navigate my journey, the better I’m able to effectively overcome challenges and obstacles. And the more joy and effectiveness I experience along the way.
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Sometimes you have to slow down.
Faster is always better, right? In Mario Kart, when I don’t slow down at times, I flame out. I started feeling edgy and anxious as I try to navigate all the twists and turns without pulling back a bit.
I’m the kind of person who wants to go full tilt all the time. I like feeling busy and productive. But when I don’t slow down now and then, I get anxious and impatient. And I miss so much along the way. Moments I can never get back.
A number of years back, when my son was in fifth grade at a small school, I brought in cupcakes for his birthday. It was a busy day. I had lots to do. I dropped them off and ran out the door. Halfway home, it hit me. Next year was middle school. This was the last year that I’d be dropping off cupcakes. I turned the car around and ate cupcakes with a bunch of rowdy fifth graders.
Sometimes we know when it will be the “last time.” Most of the time we don’t. Sometimes we can predict when an event or moment is going to be special or important with our kids. Most of the time we don’t. We have to be physically and mentally present enough to recognize and take advantage of those unexpected moments when they come.
Life is busy. We have responsibilities than we have to do. But warp speed motherhood is soul draining. It’s got to be more than just getting kids to school and activities, dropping on the couch from exhaustion and starting all over again the next day. There’s too much good stuff we’re missing along the way.
Finishing well on the hardest courses is the most satisfying.
There’s a course that I absolutely dread on Mario Kart called Rainbow Road. It’s the hardest course by far. You’re basically on a race track in outer space, so whenever you veer off course, you fall into oblivion.
I avoided it for the longest time. Then, I finally decided I was going to conquer it. If my then 9-year-old son could do it, so could I. Eventually, I did.
It sounds silly, but it was such a feeling of accomplishment.
In motherhood, I sometimes want to shrink back from the hardest challenges with my children.
When I entered a very difficult season with my daughter during the preteen years, I wanted to stay on the sideline. Trying to navigate the obstacles of that particular course was exhausting, humbling and terrifying. It required skills that I just didn’t believe I had. But this race was too important. I had to force myself on the track.
At times, it was a discouraging, soul-wrenching journey. But when that race mercifully came to an end, I was so glad I drove it. My relationship with my daughter went to a deeper level because I was willing to go to the hard places with and for her.
Difficult races build our character. They expose weaknesses. They increase our dependence on a tender, wise God who sees the obstacles ahead and travels with us through each difficult twist and turn. They build our confidence: Every time I got on the track it got easier. I got better at meeting the hard challenges.
I’ve learned to face the truth: I’ll never completely conquer the mothering race. There will always be “Marios” out there who seem to do it better than I do. And that’s okay.
It’s traveling my journey that makes it sweet.
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