Be Where Your Feet Are

On Surrendering to the Work God Has Given You

When Ember was nearing two years old, and I was slowly emerging from the postpartum haze, a friend offered me a reflection she seemed certain I needed to hear. “You’re hiding behind your husband and your daughter,” she said bluntly, with a touch of self-righteousness.

I looked down at my hands, fidgeting in my lap, and wondered if it was true. Was I hiding? Was I doing something wrong?

Fast forward to today, and we no longer speak—not because of an explicit falling out, but because our values were simply misaligned. I’ve come to realize that I can’t fully be myself in relationships that diminish the role I’m called to in this season. I can’t thrive in spaces where my priorities are dismissed as nothing more than background music in someone else’s performance.

But at the time, I was lost enough to take her words to heart. I internalized them as truth. I questioned whether I was playing small—whether my life needed more. So I did what so many of us do when we’re desperate to prove our worth. I piled more onto my plate. I launched a business. I took on long-term coaching clients. I said yes when I should have paused. And for a while, I felt the validation of doing—of being someone who appeared more expansive, more ambitious, more seen.

It took me a year and a half of living that way—pushing through exhaustion, stretching myself too thin, rediscovering my confidence and core values, and ultimately, conceiving our second child—to finally understand: I’m actually happier with less on my plate.

More importantly, I’m a more patient and present parent when I have fewer tasks to juggle—when I’m not frantically multitasking and missing all of the ordinary moments. Now, my focus is no longer tethered to external expectations or cultural conditioning. Instead, it’s firmly rooted in the world I am building—right here, right now, in the sacred space of my home.

I am a mother and a wife, fully devoted to the legacy of love I’m cultivating within my home. And I am also a woman who spends 15 hours of nap time per week working alongside my husband in the business we are building together. Not behind him. Not for him. Beside him—hand in hand, with a clear vision and bold aspirations that blend seamlessly with my desire to stay home with my children.

Neha Ruch, author, mother, and founder of Mother Untitled, captures this beautifully:

"Imagine if pausing your career to enjoy motherhood was not depicted as contrary to ambition, success, and feminism, but rather as an empowered choice to shift focus for a chapter.

It is a commonly held false belief that ambition is defined solely by career progression—and without that, women feel as though they have given something up. But what if your choice to pause or shift your career is, in itself, an ambitious choice? The popular definition of ambition is a ‘strong desire to do.’ And sometimes, that means redirecting your energy toward childcare, mental health, or family needs—work that requires the same level of determination and perseverance as any other pursuit.

Women pausing paid work for family life don’t ‘give up’ on a successful and growing career. They trust that they have decades of work ahead, and that this decision will lead to the next right thing.”

To this friend, I was hiding: shrinking into the shadows, forfeiting ambition, success, and boss-girlhood. But to me? I was making a purposeful pivot, fully embracing the season I was in (and am still in). I was choosing to be a present and devoted mother, redefining success as something far more intangible than social recognition or a paycheck.

I’m no longer lost. I stand firmly in who I am and the decisions I make. But that doesn’t mean I’m immune to the occasional twinge of “Do More” Syndrome.

So when I first came across this question in my Bible study, “What assignment has God put before you that you’re struggling to trust Him fully in,” my initial reaction was to search for the next thing. The more. The socially acceptable and applaudable.

What big thing could God be calling me to? More work? New work? A massive project? Was it time for another entrepreneurial venture, or a return to the one I started? Did I need to take up more space? More limelight?

God, what do you want from me? I wondered.

Instead of grasping for an answer, I gave myself several days to sit with the prompt—to let it percolate. Like coffee, some revelations can’t be rushed. Some only reach their fullness, their richness, when given time to brew.

And then it hit me.

The assignment God has put before me isn’t more. In fact, it’s the opposite of “Do More” Syndrome. Which is such a microcosm of the greater truth—that obeying God often requires disobeying culture. His assignment is to be where my feet are. To fully immerse myself in the purpose of parenthood. The ministry of motherhood.

His assignment is to stop seeking validation outside my home, to stop measuring my worth by productivity, to stop listening to the shoulds. Instead, He’s calling me to see the countless hours spent tending to these little hearts as enough. More than enough. Complete—without needing anything extra.

And He’s asking me to trust that. To trust Him. To believe that motherhood is His plan for me in this season. That there is a holy reason my definitions of ambition and success have shifted toward the sacred work of raising children—and that in time, new work, new projects, and new responsibilities will come. There will be a new assignment. A shift. A door that opens into another version of me, another expression of my purpose in this lifetime.

So I release the urge to search for what’s next, to justify my presence here by attaching it to something more. Instead, I anchor myself in the work before me, knowing it is God-given. This is the assignment. Not a placeholder. Not a pause. Not a season to rush through on the way to the next.

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Maybe you’re a stay-at-home mother, and this message strikes an immediate chord within you. Or perhaps you’re a mom who finds her truest self outside the home—or not yet a parent at all. Regardless of the details, I wonder if your assignment is similar:

Be where your feet are.

Remember, ambition is simply “a strong desire to do.”

But instead of doing more, what if you did what you truly desire—with more intention?

And what if you began to see your present season as the work, not a placeholder on the way to something different, but a calling infused with purpose, right here, right now?