On doing hard things.
A reflection on LEGOs, Perler beads, and the mercy of the finished work of Jesus.
This essay has been swirling in my mind and heart for more than six months. Bits and pieces have been scattered across various Google Docs, but when I stumbled upon this old post from 2019, everything finally clicked into place. These thoughts are over five years old, yet they resonate more deeply today than ever.
September 2019: Yesterday, Charlie (then around four years old) snuck a massive container of Perler beads into his room during his quiet time. This morning, I walked in to find hundreds of beads scattered across his rug and floor. The mere mention of “clean up” sent him into a full meltdown. Just the idea of tackling that mess overwhelmed him.⠀
As I stood there, I noticed he had a little LEGO box in his hand—the kind small children love to fill with random treasures. In a moment of clarity, I bent down and gently asked, “Charlie, do you think you could fit 10 beads into your LEGO box?”
His tears stopped instantly. Without a word, he ran to his room. A few minutes later, he came back, with a proud grin, holding exactly 10 beads. He dumped them into my hands, and I encouraged him to gather 10 more. Twenty-five or so trips later, he triumphantly declared, “I did it, Mama! I cleaned up ALL the beads!”
Normally (and frequently), I respond to these situations with impatience and frustration. But this time, I saw myself in his reaction. Overwhelm often feels the same, no matter your age. There are days when I, too, want to collapse on the floor and cry from the sheer weight of it all. While I don’t melt down outwardly often anymore, I struggle in more “respectable” ways like worry, anger, and paralysis.
I could wrap this up by saying we should all tackle overwhelm in small, manageable chunks, taking life one task at a time. And while there’s truth in that, it misses the bigger picture. That would communicate that the goal is to NOT struggle and that narrative just doesn’t stick. Life isn’t about escaping the struggle. The struggle is real—and ongoing. Anyone who is engaging in their inner life knows that as soon as you clear one hurdle, another appears. My instinct is often to focus on which 10 “beads” to shove into my box, trying to regain some semblance of control.
2025 Addendum:
I wrote those words in September 2019, with no idea how much the world—and our family—would change just six months later. March 2020 hit like a wrecking ball, and the pandemic uprooted everything familiar. What began as a different educational choice for our kids led me back to the classroom, teaching middle school full-time, and eventually pursuing my Master’s in Educational Leadership. Transitioning from stay-at-home/work-from-home mom to full-time teacher upturned the apple cart in our home, our marriage, our parenting, and in my heart.
It hasn’t been pretty. It’s been pretty hard. It is NOT the path I would have chosen or the story I would have written. I was content and comfortable—and, to be transparent, I thought the hardest days of my life were behind me. I certainly didn’t expect to be teaching Little Women to eighth graders at 41. That just wasn’t on my BINGO card.
But the deepest changes weren’t in my career; they were in my heart. Over the past five years, I’ve faced some of the darkest nights of my soul. To be clear, I love my work. I put my hands to it daily with integrity and joy, knowing it’s where God has called me for the good of my family, my students, and the cultivation and flourishing of my gifts. I’m a tenacious and resilient worker, and I’ve always been incredibly efficient at getting all 10 of the necessary Perler beads back in my little box - until I wasn’t.
Pursuing my Master’s degree brought this all to a head. Upon finishing my Capstone last week, a friend asked me, “What are you going to do with all this free time you have now?” I laughed because the reality is, there was no free time when I began, and there’s none now that it’s done. Yet somehow, in every nook and cranny of life, the work got done. Through it all, I learned that oft-repeated lesson: “We can do hard things.”
Still, the joy in my work has been matched by tenderness and grief in what its cost. I’m no longer the “Simple House Mama” I once was—efficient, patient, organized, and steady. Our days are much more frazzled now. Laundry looms, meals are often improvised, and my children need me in ways I sometimes feel too thin to meet. Truthfully, my faith has faltered more days than not, and I’m a shadow of who I feel I once was when I was able to get my Perler beads in the box nicely.
But the truth is, I’ve also learned that sometimes we can’t.
I circle back to that September 2019 reflection, which now speaks to me in ways I couldn’t have imagined back then:
But there is one who bends down, gets close to our face, and reminds us that he is familiar with our struggle (and all our Perler beads). He reminds us that he is with us, that weakness (when embraced) is actually a place of strength, and that by his mercy we can claim victory over striving because of his finished work. And when we lean into that, he always gives light for the next step and bread for the day ahead…never too much, always enough.
These words are balm for my weary soul tonight (five years later). And I find it precious that these words that I wrote myself are now a sermon to me: Look to Jesus, Kellie. He bends close, he is familiar with struggle, and he encourages me to embrace weakness. I had no idea how many and what variety of beads I was going to be trying to shove in that box, but He did.
These weaknesses are a mercy because they remind me to lean on the finished work of Jesus. And I don’t have to fit them all back in. He holds every one of them in His hands. He has provided daily bread and sufficient light for each next step on my path as I’ve had need. Never too much. Always enough.
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
XO, Kellie