Not so wonderful
It seems it is time to once again disabuse my readers as to my perceived wonderfulness. Because it's just not true and I don't like to feel a fraud. Also, I would hate to feel I was the cause of someone feeling badly about themselves because they were coming up short in the comparison game. In the blog world, the reader will nearly always come up short because the truth is, the contest is rigged. You only see what I choose to show you. Everyone has a desire to put themselves in the best light possible and I am no different.
When I post a photo, I don't choose the one that shows the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, or the counter that still contains remnants from Christmas, or the floor that has every single toy we own strewn across it. Since blogs don't come with soundtracks, you can't hear the children bickering, or the child who is whining because he doesn't want to pick-up, or the mother shouting because once again she has lost all patience. (Oh, how I wish that mother would just pick up and go live somewhere else!)
And I get to pick what I write about, so I don't often choose to share about the math lesson that is being done for the third time, or the third day without a math lesson, or about the days when I feel as though I accomplish nothing, or about when I teeter off the edge and have to give myself a time-out in my bedroom to have a good cry and feel a bit sorry for myself. And be really glad that there is no sense of smell that is piped in with a blog. I still have three in diapers... just sayin'.
I am not perfect. My family is not perfect. But we have a perfect and wonderful God who loves us despite our imperfections and who gives us mercy and new day over and over to try to do what is right and good. I have so far to go in how I want to be, which at the moment is serene and fearless. (Even saying I'm trying to be serene makes me laugh, because I am so far away from that.) I choose those because they both point to a deep inner knowledge of who God is and how much he loves me and my family. A knowledge that I am happy to say with my mouth, but I find that my behavior and worries show how far I have to go before I really know it.
When I post a photo, I don't choose the one that shows the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, or the counter that still contains remnants from Christmas, or the floor that has every single toy we own strewn across it. Since blogs don't come with soundtracks, you can't hear the children bickering, or the child who is whining because he doesn't want to pick-up, or the mother shouting because once again she has lost all patience. (Oh, how I wish that mother would just pick up and go live somewhere else!)
And I get to pick what I write about, so I don't often choose to share about the math lesson that is being done for the third time, or the third day without a math lesson, or about the days when I feel as though I accomplish nothing, or about when I teeter off the edge and have to give myself a time-out in my bedroom to have a good cry and feel a bit sorry for myself. And be really glad that there is no sense of smell that is piped in with a blog. I still have three in diapers... just sayin'.
I am not perfect. My family is not perfect. But we have a perfect and wonderful God who loves us despite our imperfections and who gives us mercy and new day over and over to try to do what is right and good. I have so far to go in how I want to be, which at the moment is serene and fearless. (Even saying I'm trying to be serene makes me laugh, because I am so far away from that.) I choose those because they both point to a deep inner knowledge of who God is and how much he loves me and my family. A knowledge that I am happy to say with my mouth, but I find that my behavior and worries show how far I have to go before I really know it.
Comments
Megan
Thanks for the encouragement! I think anyone who has done things out of the ordinary, such as adopting non-infants, are often told they are wonderful. It can be so difficult to convince them that it is not wonderful-ness, but obedience. And in being obedient, God gives the strength to continue, though it might not always be easy. In fact, by being obedient I have discovered how truly not wonderful I am... and it's far more not wonderful than I believed before adopting!
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