Illusion of Perfection

Have you ever had a conversation with someone who their words burn an impression on your mind? Maybe he or she was trying to make an impression, but maybe not?  Maybe the words were just and after thought or an off the cuff comment, yet they forever changed the way your perceived an area of your life?

When we were living in West Point, NY, a fellow homeschooling mom said, “All of my plates were spinning just fine…then we had our fourth and all the plates came crashing down.”  She joked that maybe it was just the high-spirited nature of the fourth kid, but that she had been wading through the mess of broken plates ever since.  Not that things were terrible or even unhappy, but that life as she knew it before, would never be the same again.

At the time, I had just had our third and number four was not even in the realm of possibility.  Fast forward two years and her comment goes through my head almost daily.  I feel the exact same way.  All my plates were spinning pretty good and then – wham – they all came crashing down 17 months ago.  Poor fourth kids, right?  No, it’s not the child – lots of other things change and added to the to do list.  I went from teaching one kid phonics and 1+1, coupled with the easiest, most content toddler ever and a husband that was in grad school two and a half days a week with no other job responsibilities, to two kids in school (one with an ever-growing work-load and swiftly approaching the teenage years and all that go with that), one in preschool,  a little boy who already has one ER visit under his belt is showing me what it means to have a “climber” and a schedule that has my husband at work far more than he is at home. My plates are a mess of broken pieces.

Humans in general, but moms especially, are susceptible to the comparison trap.  This is not a new revelation.  We look at other moms and often think one of two thoughts: either “wow, she has it all together” or “yikes, she looks like she could use some help.”  At least for me, there is often no middle ground.  I think one of those two things.  What’s crazy is that while I’m guessing that door number two (she could use some help) is more frequently the more appropriate response, I almost exclusively look at people and assume door number one.  If I’m at the park with a friend, I tend to assume that her house looks like a Pottery Barn magazine cover, her healthy dinner is prepared, all her baby books are complete and organized on the shelf, and all of her laundry is neatly put away.  Ok, I seriously do have one friend that all of those things are 100% true and accurate, but for the rest of us mere mortals, why do I assume that others moms have everything together and that I am the only one struggling to keep my head above water?

Do I think that our lives should look like a train wreck every day?  Absolutely not.  Scripture presents a picture of a God that brings order and beauty and as believers, our lives should reflect Him.  We should make plans and schedules and white space and whatever else we need to do to create beauty and harmony in our homes and in our families (I Cor. 14:40, II Thes. 4:11-12).  But we moms have got to get off the crazy train.

The Illusion of Perfection has to plague more women than just me.  Authentic, real, genuine, honest – these are all buzz words in Christian circles today. Real life and spiritual maturity happens within the context of relationships.  Relationships that foster spiritual maturity are impossible without honesty.  Do we have to air our dirty laundry with everyone, certainly not.  Do we answer every “How are you today?” with “Well, actually…” Probably not.

Sometimes being honest just means not letting other perceive something about you that isn’t true.  Any volunteers? Ok, so, I’ll start.

People frequently tell me, “I don’t know how you manage everything!”  Maybe they mean all the children, maybe the homeschooling, the writing, or all of the above.  Some weeks we are in the grove and wanna whip out my spreadsheets (literally…I have lots of spreadsheets) and say, “Well, this is actually how I do it.”

Other weeks, many weeks, like this week, I want to cup their face in my hands and gently (or not so gently) say, “I’m not.  I’m not managing everything.  We are all still alive, but rest assured, there are cracks in the ship and I’m just bailing water.”  I’ve yelled at my kids and my husband, my laundry has been sitting on my floor all week (if you know me, well you understand the turmoil this causes me…), and every time I’ve made a meal I’ve had to piece it together because I either ran out of time or I forgot to buy half the ingredients.  Addison started a new online co-op this week and my mistakes left her unprepared for every class.  It’s nothing earth-shattering, but I’ve spent my week putting out small fires and while my to do list piles up.  I’m supposed to be writing a book and weeks like this I struggle to find time to piece together a paragraph.

If you are not a planner or naturally organized, you may look at people like me and think I have it all together.  What you don’t see is that sometimes my perfectly organized spreadsheets are more like a game of Jenga – if one piece falls, the whole schedule crumbles.  When I build no white space in our calendar and then a practice runs late or the kids eat slower than the time allotted or someone just wants me to do A when the schedule says it’s time for B, then all cars on the train start colliding and things unravel quickly.

I look at “fun” moms and long to be carefree and exciting.  I’m the exact opposite of spontaneous.  My kids get confused when we don’t eat what is on the schedule for breakfast.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to feed my kids red dye and not wonder if they are going to get cancer from it one day or give them a donut and not be fearful of diabetes (hear me – I honestly wish I could not think that).  I wish I could throw the schedule out the window some days and play board games all day or have a movie day.

So, what’s my point in throwing all this out on your screen? First, I just don’t ever want to be a stumbling block to anyone.  If I’m going to have this blog and try to be obedient to the Lord in reaching people with the written word, I want it to come from a place of honesty and brokenness with no pretense that I have it all together.   Second, I know I’m not the only person that struggles with wondering how all the other moms have it together except me.

Ladies (and gents…every though I’m not sure that any of you stuck with me this far), our only hope is Jesus.  I pray that I say that in every post that I write.  He is our only source of hope and true renewal.  I think we also need to be able to look in the face of other moms and be real.  We need believers we can walk arm and arm with in this life.  We will have seasons in friendships when we are the source of encouragement for others and we will have seasons when we need others to pour into us a little more.

Let’s drop the façade.  None of us have it all together.  I won’t assume you don’t and please, please don’t assume I do.

Romans 12 is a beautiful picture of how God has made us each unique to come together to form the Body of Christ and be His hands and feet to this world.  Fun moms – I need you in my kids’ lives so that they know they can have cereal even though the schedule says oatmeal.  I need people to encourage them and build them up on days that I’ve held them to too high a standard.  Then, I’ll be here for you to show you the power of a spreadsheet and a meal plan.

Let’s start genuine conversations in this social media perceived perfection world that we live in.  You can start now – share your mom stories of triumph and failures in the comments!

I grew up going to church.  Correction, I grew up living at church.  Honestly, we probably could have changed our address to 587 Landers Drive.  Anytime the doors were open, we were there (normally always running a little late) and we were most certainly always the last ones to leave.  To this day, it is still a little weird to simply get up and walk out of church after final amen.

Our children’s church probably more closely resembled a course at a local Bible college than children’s church.  No crafts.  No games.  Just a few some cappella songs (Crayon Box song anyone…?), memory verses (For the Word of God is quick and powerful…), and then a sermon.  Between Sunday school, children’s church, “big” church, Awana, youth rallies, youth camps, and discipleship classes, I heard thousands of sermons growing up.  I went to Christian school and a Christian college.  In college, I went to chapel five morning a week and earned a minor in Bible.

With all of this training and knowledge, I should have had a firm grasp on the basics of the Christian faith, right?  I had a lot of knowledge and I even did the right things.  I checked all the boxes; however, head knowledge does not always transfer to heart knowledge.  Despite being given the clear Word of God, I somehow grew up missing a huge piece of the puzzle.  I knew the gospel – the forgiveness of sin through Christ’s work on the cross.  Yet for some reason, I thought after salvation, it was kind of up to me.  I had my list of rules to follow and that if I could keep them, God would be pleased.  This led to perfectionism – the pressure to be perfect in all areas of life.

Sitting in Bible study during my junior year at Cedarville, my Bible study leader pressed me on this issue.  I feebly explained that if I kept all my plates spinning – did everything right – then I would be happy and successful in my Christian life.  I can clearly hear her words to me that day:

“And how’s that working out for you?”

Tears flowed down my cheeks.  I had never had anyone confront me like that.  The truth was, I knew it wasn’t working.  Inwardly, I was drowning in my striving to achieve an impossible standard.  I knew all the right things, but I continued to walk in my own power and strength to try to live the Christian life out of sheer will and determination.

Fast forward five years to 2008.  We were living in Clarksville, Tennessee and were walking through our first deployment. Addison was just over a year old and, at the time, attending small group alone each week felt hard.  My introverted nature takes a while to feel comfortable in a group and some nights I spent all my time making sure Addison didn’t tear their house apart.  One night, our small group leader went around the circle asking what we took away from the sermon on Sunday, which was about the cross.  The Holy Spirit flipped a switch in my heart that night, revealing a truth that would shape me for the rest of my life.

“My whole life I’ve grown up thinking that the cross was just about salvation, however this week I’ve seen that it is so much more.  The cross is our source of power every day because Christ not only took our penalty for sin on the cross, but he took our guilt and our shame.  Through the cross and the resurrection, Christ conquered death and gave us the power to live in freedom.  The cross shows us the love of God like nothing else could.  It shows us a love that we could never earn or deserve.  The cross is our hope.”

 

Dear friends, the message of the cross – the hope of the gospel – is Christ in us, the hope of glory (Col. 1:27).  The cross bears the messages that Christ died for our sins and invites us to accept his gift of salvation, but the good news doesn’t end there!

In Romans 7, Paul tells us that we still wrestle with our flesh.  We live in a fallen world and deal with the painful consequences of our sin and the sin of those around us, but Romans 8 breaks forth in glorious light and hope:

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”

The hope of the cross brings no condemnation!!  What a sweet relief!!  Jesus went to great lengths to not only free us from the penalty of sin, but from the guilt and shame of it as well!  For years I walked in the assurance of Christ’s power over the penalty of my sin – I knew I was going to heaven.  I knew He loved me, but oh what peace it brought to my heart when I realized that I did not have to carry around the fear and shame of my sin.  I could shed my false sense of security I felt through perfectionism.  God loved me and did not condemn me.

Maybe this sounds “churchy.”  Maybe it doesn’t sound like something relevant to you or your situation, but look what I Peter 2:24 says:

“Who his own self bare our sin in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed.”

The life brings more hurt and heartache than we can bear at times, but we are not left to drown in our sorrow.   The cross brings the only hope of healing.

 

My favorite song right now is Let There Be Light (Hillsong).  It’s worth a listen!

I heard it for the first time in church a few Sundays ago.  I’m glad our church is pretty dark during worship, because I had a full-blown ugly cry.  I couldn’t sing.  I just cried out to the Lord from the depth of my soul as the words washed over me:

Good news embracing the poor

Comfort for all those who mourn

For the broken-hearted

We sing louder

Release from prison and shame

Oppression turning to praise

For every captive

Sing louder

Restoring sight to the blind

Breaking the curse of the night

For all in darkness

Sing louder

Proclaiming freedom for all

This is the day of the Lord

Beauty for ashes

Let there be light

Open the eyes of the blind

Purify our hearts in Your fire

Breathe in us we pray

Let there be light

Open our eyes to Your heart

Desperate just to know who You are

Shine in us we pray

Jesus have Your way

 

Friends, Satan is the father of lies.  He wants to keep us in bondage and fear to our sin.  He wants to cripple our walk and keep us from living the abundant life Christ has promised.  For many of us, he is winning the battle.  The fear and shame of our sin has paralyzed us.  But dear ones, the light of the gospel is our hope!  Light is the only thing powerful enough to dispels darkness.  Shining the truth of the Word on the lies of Satan is the only way to defeat his hold on our hearts.

Father, I pray that your truth would be seen, that your light would dispel darkness in our hearts.  I pray that we would know You – to know your hope and power that you give to those who have accepted your Son.  You are our good news.  You are our hope.  I pray that you would “break the curse of the night” in hearts.  Show your glory through us.  Take the pile of ashes in our lives and turn them to beautiful masterpieces of your glory.

Three hundred sixty-six days ago I sat alone in Kansas and my husband sat on a plane headed to Afghanistan.  (Ok…I’m never really alone with four kids…never.)  Seven weeks earlier, movers dumped all of our worldly goods on our doorstep (almost literally) for the 8^th time in 11 years.  I thrive on organization, schedules, and planning.  I do not do well living in the chaos of boxes for more than a few days. In the military there is an unwritten rule that people have to unpack quickly.  “Yeah, we normally have boxes gone in 3 days.”  “Oh it takes us about 4 days and we have curtains hung and pictures on the wall.” That’s not me.  On day NINE, I want to throw one of my boxes at those people.  I literally have to unpack every box and find a home for everything.  I can’t simply shove a box in a corner of the garage and open it if I need it.  When I dropped my husband off, I still came home to a few boxes left to unpack.

After doing this eight times, you would think I would be used to this process.  Unpacking, uprooting, starting over.  However, strangely enough, I feel like I am a little worse at it each time.  I am like a turtle.  When chaos approaches or when I feel danger or discomfort coming my way, I retreat into my shell.  I don’t go introduce myself to my neighbors, I vow not to be involved in the FRG, I resist volunteering. I routinely tell my husband, “I do not want to make new friends.  I just want to gather all of my old ones in one place.”  I cope with moving by grasping for what I feel I can control.  (I do eventually come around – meet my neighbors, volunteer for pretty much everything, leave my house and rejoin the human race…you get it.)

Maybe your situation isn’t moving, but big changes or turmoil in our life shows our character very quickly.  Oh it may look different played out for each of us, but it boils down to one thing – control.  We believe the lie of the enemy that we have control.  We believe that with enough grit, determination, planning, organizing, anger or denial, we can manage to steer our circumstances with some measure of control.  If we eat healthy and workout, we will have the bodies we want and live a long life.   If we raise our children in church, they will love the Lord.   If we love our spouse, they will love us in return. If we obey, we will not suffer. If we are vulnerable, honest and kind, our friends will not betray us. The enemy veils his lies in such subtle ways that not only do we not see them as lies, but we see them as noble pursuits.   Eating healthy, loving others, investing our money wisely or pouring time and effort into disciplining our children are worthy uses of our time.  God has certainly called us to follow His Word in all of these areas.  The lies creep in when we believe we can control the outcome.  If we do A, then B will happen.  If we do A, then we are entitled to B.

I just finished a brief study of the book of Job.  Poor guy, right?  You can’t get past the first verse without seeing that this was a great guy.  He checked the boxes.  He kept the lists and unlike the Pharisees, his heart was even right while he did it!  He was everything that we strife to be.  Yet he lost it all and despite what his friends told him, it wasn’t his fault.  HE HAD NO CONTROL. He could not have worked his circumstances any differently to change the outcome.  Praying more would not have helped.  Seeking wise counsel would not have worked.  He could not have orchestrated his life in such a way to avoid the affliction that he suffered.  It wasn’t even Satan’s idea to persecute him – it was God’s (Job 1:8)!

Why?  Why would God suggest persecuting someone who had done everything right?  Someone that had sought to follow the Lord?  Someone that is described as “perfect and upright.”  Oh, we understand the consequences that the fall and sin have had on this world.  We know Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble…” We know people suffer.  People suffer.  Other people.  We can even come to grips with our own suffering when it is a result of sin or poor decisions.  I don’t struggle with 5 extra pounds on the scale as much when I’ve enjoyed an Oreo milkshake each night after dinner.  I struggle with the 5 extra pounds when I have been to the gym, drank nothing but water and watched my husband eat the milkshake.  If I did A then B should have happened.  Lord if I kept your Word, then this shouldn’t have happened.

The lie the enemy wants us to believe is that we are in control.  Fear overwhelms us and grips us because we are grasping for control.  We think we had it and that it is slipping away from us.  Peace comes when we surrender to the fact that we aren’t in control and truly never were.

Job’s cries to the Lord were not over losing his things, his physical pain or even losing his children.  Read Job’s words.   The cry of his heart is centered on one thing – why.  God, why is this happening?  Why am I suffering after how I have lived?  I have honored you, so why have you abandoned me?  Pouring our souls out before the Lord is commendable.  The Psalmist shows us that. Our precious Savior invites us to His feet to cast our burdens on Him.  But in the midst of suffering our pondering of the why reveals something in our hearts about what we believe about God.  For 37 chapters we see Job and his friends wrestle with the question of why.  Chapter 38 opens with these words: “Then the Lord answered Job…”  What was Job’s question: God why am I suffering?  Saddle up Job, here is your answer. (How often do we wish the Lord would answer our questions in such a bold and physical way?)

Read Job 37-41.  Job’s questions are answered with a series of questions that seem to miss the mark until we dig a little deeper.

“Lord, why am I suffering?”

“Where were you when the foundations of the world were laid?”

“But Lord why am I suffering?”

“Can you count the clouds? Can you feed the ravens?”

I imagine Job felt overwhelmed (especially after 38, verse 3 – stand up like a man and give me an answer – yikes!).

Job had believed the subtle lie of the enemy: if you live righteously, then you will not suffer.

God’s response – He overwhelmed Job with how big He is.  He is God.

The why questions in our life reveal what we believe about God and His sovereignty.  He is God. We are not.  He is in control.  We are not.  Job never knew why he suffered his great affliction.  As far as we know, Job was never told about that conversation between God and Satan in chapter 1, but he did get to hear God out of a whirlwind.  He got to feel the Lord pursuing his heart in a way he would never have experience if he had not walked through such suffering.

I am just beginning to come out of a fog that had enveloped me since the birth of our son sixteen months ago.  In addition to a nine-month deployment, I suffered 24 bouts of mastitis. Despite eating healthy, going to the chiropractor, taking Juice Plus and trying to reduce toxins in my house, my kids and I were sick for over a month – trading the flu and a stomach virus back and forth.  Jake wouldn’t sleep at night for most of the deployment.  Looking back, I probably struggled with depression during one of the darkest periods of my life.  Most days I clawed my way through the day and collapsed on the couch at night.  Everything felt hard.

Maybe mastitis and deployments shouldn’t be compared to the suffering of Job.  While not on the same scale as Job’s loss, if you have ever been through mastitis, you know the immense physical pain.  Multiple rounds brought not only physical but emotional pain.  What am I doing wrong?  God, why is this happening? You can bring healing – why are you not healing me? Don’t you know I’m alone? Don’t you know my husband is gone?  We already sacrifice enough – why me?  I did everything I was supposed to do.  I implemented every suggestion.  I prayed.  My husband prayed over me.  Elders from our church prayed over me.  I followed the rules!! Why?

The Lord’s response to me was the same as it was to Job and the same as it is to you – I am God.  Suffering and pain in this life is more clearly understood when we surrender to the fact that He is God and we are not.  His ways are not ours and most importantly – the He is good.  He is not a bully that throws suffering our way just to watch us writhe.  He is a good God and Father that wants the very best for us.  He allows trials to shape us into His image.  His heart is grieved when the consequences of our sin wrap tentacles of consequence far beyond what we ever imagined.

On more than one occasion during those nine months I would break down in tears over the stress of everything.  My girls would reciprocate my tears.  I desperately wanted to be the strong person in their life, the rock that they could lean on, but I just couldn’t.  So I did the only thing I knew to do – I gathered them in my arms and cried out to the Lord. I pointed them to the true Rock; the only one they could lean on when life crashed around them.

Job’s response to the whirlwind should be a guide for our response, “I know that You can do all things and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted” (42:2).  Friends, resting in the hand of the Creator of the universe is our only hope.  He is good, no matter what we face.  His plans cannot be thwarted no matter how dark the days may seem. He only asks for our trust and obedience.  Striving and fighting for control that we never even had will only leave us weary, empty and disappointed.   Your situation may not work out.  It may crumble, but as believers, our hope does not come from our circumstances.  Our hope can only come from knowing our Heavenly Father, knowing His goodness and trusting His plan for our lives.

Lord, may we see with clearer understanding that You alone are in control and that You do not owe us answers.  You are supreme and we are dust. We thank you that in all of your majesty and splendor, that you chose to put on flesh and dwell with us – to get in our skin and be close to us.  You invite us to cry out to you as our Father and we can trust that you are good.   May we understand that peace in the midst of the storm comes not from relief, but from setting our eyes firmly on you.