Sunday mornings with kids don’t disappointment

Before kids, although I can hardly remember that 27 years of my life now, I’d heard of it. The new level of struggle that comes with Sunday mornings. But until I have lived it, I didn’t know. Not really.

Last Sunday, I had both kids sans husband while he was gone serving. And man, oh man. The crazies came out in my kids.

I mean, I am here with them 5 our of 7 days, alone, totally outnumbered (2 to 1), and for the most part, I can subdue this territory. Or at least keep us from riot mode. Why should Sunday be any different?

But Sundays are another animal, and all I can honestly do is laugh about it. Otherwise, I would be curled up in the corner, crying.

Last week, all before 9:00AM, I was chasing my son around the kitchen, trying to give him much-needed ear drops. (And if you have never encountered ear-drops, then you don’t know the gelatinous awfulness of it. I would be screaming my head off and running around the kitchen, too, if you tried to put it in my ear). Once I finally succeeded, I then found honey in both mine and my son’s hair (or maybe it was the ear drops again, I’m not entirely sure). Seriously? So while going to try to eradicate my hair of honey without having to shower again – is there a pinterest tip for this? -I suddenly hear my son cackling.

You think, aww, sweet.
Nope.
Trouble.
That is what that cackle means.

And that morning, trouble looked like my 18 month old running down our hallway with the plunger. (I made sure to thank my husband later that afternoon for leaving it in the kids’ bathroom.)

Can I just douse the entire house in water and disinfectant and start the day again? Nope – 20 minutes to church. Ugh….Sunday strikes again.

This week – it’s tuning up to be another good one. A whole pitcher of water (and 6 roses) poured into the middle of the kitchen floor. Yep, the 18 month old again. I knew I needed to mop, but I would have preferred using non-plant food dissolved water. Sigh. It’s only 7:45AM.

Yes, Sunday, you never fail to provide a level of excitement that I seem to always be unprepared for. But not for long. I know your game now.

Next week – I’m waking up with rubber gloves & two sets of clothes (per child) ready. Do your best, Sunday. I’ll be ready.

“This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. “ Psalm 118:24

My prayers today

Inspired by the blog post (linked at the bottom of this post) I wanted to share my prayers today for those that may be struggling with receiving all that God has for them in this specific season of life, in this specific place and time with its myriad of challenges and trials (myself included).

I pray we can give each other the freedom and grace to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to whatever we sense is right for our families in any given season, without having to wade through the disparaging looks and disapproving shakes-of-the-head from others who are just as desperately & imperfectly trying to make the right choices as well.

I pray we can throw off comparison and instead embrace the uniqueness of the specific equation the Lord has set before us, and live that out well and boldly and in enjoyment.

I pray that you will see the beauty in your specific story today, the one that God is authoring and orchestrating. I pray that you can sense His Presence and His absurdly extravagant love for you, and that He is desiring to draw you to Himself through whatever circumstances surround you. I pray for His peace for you.

I also pray that the Lord would cultivate His discipline and sense of authority in us, that we can choose the good and throw away the bad in every given opportunity and medium, that we can glean the benefits from media and recognize the ways that it can so easily pull us down as well.

I guess I relate to this post below for several reasons – the obvious being her self-identifying label as a ‘recovering perfectionist’. I also appreciate her bringing attention to the fact that there is an attraction and a real danger to the ‘pinterests’ of the world that put images in our heads (and hearts) that are unrealistic and quite possibly the biggest distractions from what we actually need to be putting our hands to (not to mention time, finances, and mental ascents). I’m not meaning to demonize pinterest – it has become a great keeper of recipes for me – but I also see how it can be a personal stumbling block,  and perhaps I am not alone in that.

Pinterest may help me become a better cook (I’m sure my husband would be appreciative), but Pinterest will never make me into someone that has a natural eye for fashion, can make a crafty squirrel from cotton balls and pipe cleaners, and will probably only ever show me what my house will NEVER look like. ever.

If I look at Pinterest or anything else for that matter, and I walk away thinking about all that I cannot do or have, and I’m not okay with that, then I need to stop looking. I need to be able to walk away from it (whatever the source may be) instead of allowing it to tell me something about myself that isn’t true. That I am somehow deficient. Missing out. Lacking (those lies of perfectionism creeping back in).

Let’s call that what it is really is – a direct assault on my Maker, as if He has somehow missed something when He was creating me and designing me for the role I was meant to fill.

What I can and cannot do was specifically designed for what God intends to do in and through my life. I pray that I will learn to embrace that fully, appreciating His design, trusting and reveling, even revel in His wisdom.

I pray that we can start to spot the lies that are thrown our way and bring them out into the light. God’s truth can always stand up under examination, and anything else has to flee and backdown against His Truth and in His Presence.

I also pray that we can stand firmly in the role and calling that God has placed us in, finding our security in Him, so that we can be excited and share the joy in others’ special giftings. What a blessing to be able to esteem all that God is doing in someone else’s life without fear of feeling it is somehow detracting from the special thing God is doing in me.

I could go on and on, but I’ll end this here with the link I referenced above:

http://asimplehaven.com/keeping-it-real-in-a-pinterest-world-on-justifying-my-choices

I would love to hear any thoughts or ways you may relate to either post if you’d like to share!

Lies of Perfectionism

(This post was written a while back – it’s taken a while to get it finalized.)
Y’all – I don’t even really know what to say about this.

I was just having a conversation with The Sweetness  while we were working through a tracing workbook together, and she seemed disappointed about her first diamond tracing. I told her she did a good job (it wasn’t very precise, but I thought she did well) and she put her pencil down and said “But it’s not perfect…”

Whaaa???

Seriously?

Here’s a little personal background information before I proceed, so that this makes a little bit more sense and why this statement hit me like a ton of bricks. Recently, the Lord has been showing me how I have this awful struggle with the lies of perfectionism. One of the lies I have believed is that I needed to be or do something in order to be “more” (more acceptable, more appealing, more loved, etc.) because I was not enough.

Perfectionism sets up a standard that I was never supposed to meet, keeps this unrealistic measuring stick in front of me, and dictates that I devote my life to trying.
The reward it offers: a daily serving of shame and self-condemnation.
The message it speaks: -“I don’t measure up, I am lacking. I am not enough. Keep trying. Keep doing. Keep fixing.” or “Don’t even bother. You can’t do it right. Give up.”
The focus: me.

Truthfully, these weeds are still planted in my heart and the Lord has begun a process of identifying and uprooting them, in His faithfulness. But I never would have imagined what unraveled this morning with my 3 year old daughter. She has become one of the biggest tools the Lord uses to show me more of Himself, myself, and pretty much anything else He wants to talk to me about.

So we proceeded to have a very Holy Spirit-led conversation about how her tracing doesn’t need to be perfect, that only Jesus is perfect and that we don’t have to be or do things perfectly. Jesus just asks us to be obedient & do the best with what we’ve been given, and He takes care of the results. And when we work within these parameters, it is beautiful (words to my soul, seriously).

I don’t know if this issue has always been there with Natalie and that my eyes are only opened to it now that the Lord is showing me my own struggle with perfectionism, or maybe this is a new phase for her.

Regardless, I am pretty sure I don’t use that term “perfect,” especially now, so I don’t think she got that vocabulary from me. However, I don’t underestimate how my nonverbal behaviors and responses may have encouraged frustration with something that is less than ‘ideal.’  I pray that I’ve never acted that way towards her, as though she wasn’t enough. (My heart sinks now at the thought of how these lies permeate my heart and overflow to the relationships around me.)  My succumbing to perfectionism is usually focused on myself and my actions. But she’s sooo smart and intuitive, and I know she picks up on subtle messages like this, to where she may be internalizing the way I treat myself and learning to do that, too.

Regardless of the source, this is craziness. I am SOOO thankful that the Lord is bringing all of this to light and that He promises to bring us through this. I’m SO thankful that I am not blind to both of our struggles with the lie that we need to be or do anything more than what and where we already and what He has already equipped us to do. He will continue to grow me and grow Natalie, and we can be okay with where we are today, in process.

(This also challenges the ways that I have misinterpreted seeking God’s excellence for perfection, but that is another post.)

“But now God has shown us a different way to heaven—not by “being good enough” and trying to keep his laws, but by a new way (though not new, really, for the Scriptures told about it long ago). Now God says he will accept and acquit us—declare us “not guilty”—if we trust Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, by coming to Christ, no matter who we are or what we have been like. Yes, all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious ideal; yet now God declares us “not guilty” of offending him if we trust in Jesus Christ, who in his kindness freely takes away our sins.“ – Romans 3:22-24, Living Bible

“But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“ – Ephesians 2:4-10

Thank You, Jesus, for showing me in a very real and personal way this morning how this awful deception threatens the legacy that I am passing down to my kids. I know that I will not parent them perfectly, and that lies like this will continue to creep into what I am living before them, but I thank You for Your faithfulness to keep Your Promise, that You and Your truth will be their beautiful inheritance, just like You are mine.

Please continue to teach me more of Your truth and help me to recognize it, throwing out anything else. Instead of allowing the lies of perfectionism to tell me that I don’t measure up to whatever standard the enemy or this world have projected and that I am rejected, give me the boldness and authority in You to tell those lies that they don’t measure up to Your Truth and in turn reject them.

Thank You for Your unfailing love that continually pursues me and my family. And that despite what these lies tell me, it’s not really about me or what I can do, but about You in me and what You want to do.  Amen.

Thanks for letting me share.

(Quick side-note: Since starting this post, I have also wondered how much of this struggle with wanting things to be ideal and perfect may come from the fact that we were originally intended for that, perfection, before sin and The Fall. And maybe there is still a part of us that expects it and longs for it because that was the original design. But instead of trying to create it here on earth, I need to be reminded that it will now be available for me in heaven, because of Jesus. And because of what He has done, I can rest in that and just let Him change me into who I’m supposed to be now, on this side of heaven.)