But God, I Have A Clipboard: A Memoir of Motherhood, Mayhem, and Learning to Let Go
Danielle Rivenbark had a plan.
Actually, she had several plans. Probably a spreadsheet. Definitely a clipboard.
As a professional event planner, Danielle built a career around anticipating problems, managing chaos, and making sure everything happened exactly when it was supposed to. Naturally, she brought the same strategy to motherhood.
It did not go according to plan.
The babies didn't sleep. The toddlers escaped. The laundry multiplied. One child ate ice melt. Another created art with a medium that should never be considered art. Work deadlines collided with sick kids, school schedules, marriage, six children, and the persistent belief that if Danielle could just become a little more organized, disciplined, patient, and efficient, she could finally hold everything together.
Then life dismantled the plan.
In But God, I Have a Clipboard, Danielle tells the funny, messy, deeply personal story of a working mother and recovering perfectionist slowly discovering that the answer to an overwhelming life wasn't becoming capable of carrying more.
It was learning she was never meant to carry it alone.
Through career upheaval, homeschooling, a growing family, unexpected diagnoses, marriage, motherhood, and enough chaos to justify a fifteen-passenger van, Danielle begins to recognize what God had been showing her all along: some things are worth carrying. Some need to be put down. Some require another set of hands. And some were never hers to control in the first place.
This isn't a story about finally getting life right.
It's about grace when you don't.
It's about choosing the people over the performance, finding God in the unfinished work, and discovering that a beautiful life can also be loud, exhausting, imperfect, and completely different from the one you planned.
Because sometimes the most important words in the story are simply:
But God.