The Imperfectly Perfect Mom

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She brought a big bag of snacks for her kids, again. Sitting in the gym all day, this seems to be a good decision. But all it does is make me feel incompetent as a mother. She seems to never forget anything, never get ruffled, always looks cute, makes school lunches, cooks breakfast, has the “Mom” shirt for everything, and brings snacks and drinks for her kids everywhere they go. She’s THAT mom. I’m sure you know her. She does a great job and though she probably doesn’t mean it, you always feel a bit unqualified around her.

Then there’s me: a perfect picture of “scattered.” I do well to remind them to take their medicine each morning. Sometimes, I have time to make sure they eat breakfast but most of the time I’m yelling from my bathroom for them to get some cereal as I finish up getting ready for work. They’re all 12 and older. They can take care of themselves sometimes. As we’re rushing out the door to go to work and school, I almost always have to run back in to get something I forgot. They eat lunch at school every day and I try to grab something for myself as I’m running out the door. They grab clothes from the dryer… there’s ALWAYS clothes in the dryer… if they have clean clothes at all. Sometimes, I’ll have several baskets of clean clothes waiting to be put up. There’s dirty dishes in the sink from the night before and as I shut the door, I put it out of my mind. There’s always tonight.

I definitely do not have it all together. I have a list a mile long for things which I’m responsible. I have long lists at work, long lists at home, long lists with kids, reminders that pop up on my phone all the time because I can’t remember anything without them and I also try to squeeze in a little “me” time. Usually, that time is best spent taking a nap! I spend a lot of time feeling like I have too much to do and can’t do anything well, including taking care of my children.

But here’s what I do make sure happens: When we are home, we sit at the table for dinner and talk, sometimes for hours. Car time and table time are both “phone free” zones so that conversation can take place. Sometimes it’s needed, sometimes it’s craved, and sometimes it’s just for fun. Other times, it may be quiet, but the option is there to talk to each other. I do my best to have a devotion with them at night and pray with them. I take the time to rub their feet and/or back most of the nights they request it. I tell them I love them every single day. I make sure they do their chores and follow through with responsibilities, but I show grace too because I don’t always follow through either. They know I make mistakes because I tell them, and apologize. I work outside of the home to help provide for their needs and I also juggle all the practices, games, tournaments, and extracurricular activities.

And I try to remember this truth: No matter what is going on or how busy we are or how many mistakes I make as a Mom, I was chosen by God to be exactly the Mom my children needed. He chose me to be their Mom because He knew they needed ME. He knew that I would struggle to remember things and be scattered. He knew that I wouldn’t be the “always put together and on top of things” Mom. He knew that I would give my very best and still not feel good enough. And He reminds me that I am. Good enough. And more.

I love my children. I do the best I can for them. And when another mom seems to handle her children better than I do, I am going to do my best to remember my value as a mom. I’m going to remind myself of the good things I do. And I will NOT allow Satan to use another Mom to make me feel less valued or important.

To the Momma who feels like me sometimes, you are more than enough for your children. God knew what He was doing when He gave you those precious treasures. Pick your head up, put your best foot forward, acknowledge your need for God in your life, and be the Mom He created you to be. You may not be perfect, but you are the perfect Mom for your children. The imperfectly perfect Mom. We all do different things well so stop comparing. Other Moms are not the enemy! Other Moms choose different paths that are best for them and their families. It will be different from yours and that is ok.
And when “that mom” walks into the gym with all her snacks and forethought, throw your snarky and bitter thoughts out the window and be happy for her. I promise you, there’s other things she struggles with in which you are amazing! They just might not be as publicly seen. Focus on Christ, yourself, and your family. You are right where you need to be. And your children have a wonderful Mom.

A Friendship: Lost and Found

I had lunch today with an old friend. We were tight back in the day and did most everything together. For a period of several years, she was my very best friend. We laughed together and cried together and we had each others’ back. Well, at least she had mine.

I ended up hurting her. Badly. I cut her out of my life completely because she was telling me the truth about the life I was living. She spoke truth into my life that I didn’t want to hear. I was living in sin and going down a path that ultimately led to heartache for both me and those I love. She knew it and she hated standing by watching me head this direction. She did everything in her power to stand in my way, to try to keep me from continuing this path, and to show me that God was not in it. The more she tried, the more I pushed her away from me. Satan whispered in my ear that she was wrong and I needed to let her go. Sadly, I must admit that I listened to him.

Through this process, I hurt her. Wounded deeply by me, she eventually walked away and we went years without talking.

She was a true friend and was looking out for me. I didn’t want it and my heart was cold. I believe she would’ve continued being my friend despite the circumstances because her friendship was unconditional, but I allowed other influences to persuade me to push her out of my life.

With this experience I’ve learned a few things about friendship.

  • Your true friends will tell you the truth, even when it’s hard.  
  • Godly friends will back up the truth with Godly principles.
  • If her advice lines up with Scripture and Godly principles, LISTEN to her.
  • When your heart grows cold, you don’t care who you hurt. Let God continually work on your heart. Seek Him and let Him guide your life. When you fail to pursue God above anyone else, not only do you get hurt, others do too.
  • Sin in your life separates you from God and His people. If you notice that you’re starting to surround yourself more by unGodly people and things are becoming distant with your Christian friends who really know you, reexamine your life and the state of your heart. There is a reason.
  • Sometimes a good friend can see more clearly the situation you’re in. You may be too close to it to be objective.
  • If you have a good friend, don’t let her go.
  • Once you lose the trust of a friend, it’s hard to gain it back.

We’ve been in contact again for about a year and slowly have begun to open up to each other. So this morning, with lunch planned, I cried. I know I have been forgiven by God for how I treated her and have even mostly forgiven myself, but I still hurt for her. I can put myself in her shoes now and my heart hurts for the pain I caused. As I thought about meeting her for lunch, I thought to myself how blessed I was to have her in my life again. Though it is different now, she’s shown me grace and I am simply grateful.

Today as we visited, I wished I had never pushed her away. I thought about where our friendship might be today if I hadn’t. I wished she could trust me again but I understand completely if she never fully puts herself out there. And I give her that pass. I’m the one who destroyed our friendship long ago and just because I’ve apologized and am truly repentant doesn’t mean that she is now required to trust me again. These things take time.

I’ve learned a big lesson from this one mistake. And I hope and pray I never make it again.

Thank you my friend, for being a true friend to me even though it hurt you, for standing in the gap for me, for fighting for me and my relationship with God, for loving me despite my choices, for showing me grace, and for letting me back into your life. I didn’t love you then like I should have, but I love you now, and I hope to someday be able to make amends for the hurt I caused you. You are a beautiful picture of what a daughter of Christ looks like and I’m honored to know you.

Is Sorrow a Lack of Faith?

He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death…” Mark 14:34a

I was getting groceries one day when a wave of sorrow hit me. Tears stung my eyes. This period of my life was really hard and I was tired of acting like everything was okay. As I pushed my mostly empty cart, I wondered how I would finish. I tried to push through. But the sadness was too strong. I quickly put the few groceries I had back on the shelves and walked out to my car. This life was too hard and today was a day that I could not ignore it and be strong. As I drove home, despite the other errands I was supposed to run, I wept.

Life isn’t supposed to be this hard, is it?

When I arrived at my empty home, I ran inside and fell to the floor. At this point, I was not only crying, I was in a gut wrenching belly cry and yelling over and over “why me?!!” With my face buried in my hands, I scolded myself for letting me get to this point. Someone with faith doesn’t have breakdowns. Someone with faith doesn’t get sad. Because we should know that God has a plan and a purpose and trust it so much that we never let sadness overtake us. Right?

This morning, I read such a comforting Scripture. Mark 14:34 states that Jesus was overcome with great sorrow, to the point of death. Jesus, our perfect example, was sad?

I will never be able to understand how Jesus felt in this moment or the depth of what He was going through. He was about to take the weight of sin of the entire world on His shoulders, beaten and humiliated, and separated from His Father. It’s not in our capacity to understand how this felt to Him. And we will never go through anything as horrific as that.

However… He can identify with feelings that we have today. He’s felt the sorrow and grief that we at times feel. He cried out to God to deliver Him!

Notice His prayer in verse 36, “Abba Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

There are a few things we can learn from this verse.

1)   Jesus addresses his Father with warm affection and confidence when He cries out “Abba Father”. There is no doubt that they have a strong relationship with these two little words. If in our moments of heartache, we have put the time into our relationship with our Father and it is strong, we can confidently cry out to Him, not with a cry of bitterness or anger, but with a cry of affection and confidence that He is near, and is listening.

2)   Jesus acknowledged his Father as the one who could do anything. His faith in Him was unwavering. In our prayers, acknowledging the power of God is our way of stating that we know without a doubt He has the power to do all things and that we believe in Him.

3)   Although Jesus had a strong faith, He still requested that God find another way to fulfill His plan. He asked God to deliver Him from what was about to happen. How often have we done this? I know I have many times. The spirit of this request is the key. Jesus was not complaining. His heart was not hard, bitter, or angry. He was simply grieved in His spirit and respectfully asked God to change the situation. It is not a lack of faith from which this request comes, but rather a simple request from a saddened heart.

4)   Above all, Jesus wanted the will of His Father, even if it was different from his own. In closing His prayer, He acknowledged ultimate faith in God by stating that God’s will trumped anything else. Jesus knew that God had a plan to fulfill and he trusted Him completely, even if he was going to have to continue this path.

Mark 14 goes on to state that Jesus prayed the same prayer multiple times. God did not grant him his request but Jesus’ faith never waivered. He did not get angry or question God. He simply obeyed. And I will forever be grateful for His sacrifice!

Are you grieved in your spirit? Are you going through something difficult? Jesus knows how you feel. He’s felt sorrow. And pain. Unlike anything we’ve ever experienced. He sees your sorrow and He understands. In these moments, let’s learn from Him and His prayer.

It’s okay to cry out to God in moments of desperation. It’s okay to be sad and ask God to remove you from situations. I’m comforted by the fact that Jesus has been there. And He’s shown us a perfect example of how to handle it. Sorrow is not a lack of faith. We can ask anything of God with a humble spirit. Faith is trusting that God’s will is ultimately the best plan for our lives, even when we may not understand it.

Unexpected Lessons and Blessings

In a little diner an hour and a half from home, I started writing. I wrote about a paragraph and felt like it wasn’t what God wanted me to write. So I stopped and started praying. I paused and looked around the diner. I looked at the table in front of mine and saw a little old lady sitting alone. We made eye contact and I smiled. That’s all it took for her to start talking to me. She shared with me that she had cancer and was having surgery in a few weeks to remove it. Her battle with cancer started in 2003 and she was fighting it again after they found another spot.

Our conversation continued and I found out many things about her including her marriage of 41 years to her High School sweetheart that ended when he died of brain cancer many years ago. The doctors told her near the end of his life that she should put him in a nursing home because he would become violent and she needed to protect herself. She told them “absolutely not!” as she explained that just because he may not recognize her enough to fully love her, she still loved him and that’s all the love they needed. She followed that up with a sheepish grin “And he didn’t become violent. Maybe a little childish but never violent.” Then she told me of her second marriage of 21 years, her daughter and granddaughter, her new “smart phone” that she couldn’t figure out so she just turned it off, and that she drove the truck to the diner instead of the car. It was normal conversation with a sweet lady that was craving communication and it blessed me.

I started thinking… How many times do we miss out on these conversations with people because our heads are down and stuck in our virtual world on our phones? How many times is there a sweet old lady who needs to be shown God’s love sitting in the booth next to us at the diner or the seat next to us at the doctor’s office? How many times has there been someone sitting next to us that is in the darkest time in their life and a simple smile of acknowledgement would help her feel like she’s noticed and seen?

How many opportunities have I missed to show God’s love to someone else?

So as I sit here at the diner, thinking about the lady next to me, I realize that she taught me a few things. She taught me that love stands up for someone and that you don’t have to receive love to give it. She taught me that faith gives us hope. She taught me that sometimes it’s better to not understand our smart phones and turn them off, or just turn them off anyway. She taught me that there are still times in life in which we should have conversations with strangers. She took me back to a place where people looked each other in the eye and held face-to-face conversations.

And she taught me that loving others is shown in the simple things, like taking the time out of your day to acknowledge someone else, smile, and simply listen to them.

As you go through your day, think about your surroundings. Find an opportunity to reach out to someone and show that person love. You never know when there may be a little old lady that would love a little company. And when you’re praying, say a prayer for my new friend Audrey who is fighting cancer. She would certainly appreciate it.

When All Seemed Hopeless

My back’s up against the wall. I see no way out. I feel as if the oxygen in the room is leaving as quickly as a criminal leaves a crime scene. My world is falling apart and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I’ve kicked and cried and screamed for way too long. But it doesn’t help. I can barely breathe now and the fighting fire has left me. What do I do now? I can’t live like this but I don’t know how to escape it. I look around me and see the chains. They are thick and entangled around me. The weight of them causes me to fall on my face. My face is now bleeding but I don’t even care. I don’t care about anything. I am hopeless. Why am I even here? Why do I even keep trying? It’s more than I can handle.

Suddenly I see a light in the distance. It is coming towards me and I am afraid. What now? What pain will I have to endure next? Hasn’t there been enough?

As the light gets closer however, I start to relax. It’s beginning to wash over me with a calm I haven’t felt in a long time. And then I see Him. The light is so bright I can barely make Him out at first but it is the figure of a man. His face… oh, His face. It looks at me with more love than I have ever seen. This man, who sees me at my worst in this moment, who sees me in this darkness and bondage. My hair is disheveled, my clothes are torn and my eyes are wild. Yet, there’s something about Him that draws me in. I can’t take my eyes off of HIm. Our eyes are locked and He gently speaks. “My daughter, my beautiful daughter, I see that you have yourself in quite a mess. Your actions have caused you to be so bound by the weight and chains of sin that you are now beyond recognition by others. But I see you. I see inside to the person I created you to be. And you are beautiful.”

As I lay there on the floor, in my worst moment, He just called me beautiful. How is this? I recognize Him. Do I know him? As I look at Him and hear Him speak to me, His voice is familiar as well. It’s all coming back. The good times we spent together. I’m starting to remember the closeness we once shared. He was my Father and I followed Him.

What had happened to me? I didn’t plan for this to happen. Will He ever forgive me?

“Yes,” He said. “I will forgive you. I already have.”

“I never meant for this to happen.” I told Him. You see, this didn’t just happen in an instant. It started with one decision. One decision that veered off the narrow path just a little. And then another and another. Each time, it was only a small thing. “No big deal,” I told myself.

With tears streaming down my face, I told Him that I was wrong and all the things that had landed me in this place. This place of bondage. He listened so intently and I knew that He still loved me. I told Him that I didn’t know how it could happen, but I wanted Him in my life again. I wanted to be free again.

With love in His eyes, He explained that He paid the price for my freedom a long time ago. He told me that I could be free and have a relationship with Him once again. And I’ll never forget it when He said, “Daughter, your faith has made you whole. Go and sin no more.”

Immediately, my chains disintegrated. He gave me a new set of clothes and filled me with hope. He wiped my tears and gave me a new name. He told me that I was His and that no power of darkness would ever have a hold on me again. He told me to look up and keep my eyes firmly planted on Him.

I conceded. I could not live without Him another day in my life.

 
Jesus, I will forever praise Your name for Your hand in my life. Thank you for freeing me from a life of sin and breaking my chains forever. You are the true Healer and have healed my hardened heart. Please continue working on me and molding me into the person you created me to be. I know that you want what’s best for me and because you know the future, know exactly what that is. Please help me to continue trusting you with my life and to remember what happened when I took my life into my own hands, not to criticize myself, but only to remember that my best path is the one you have for me. I love you Father and I will never leave you again.  ~Angie