Perfect?

I don't know how to do this without sounding prideful.  It's not meant to be, so if you start getting ticked off at me, please don't.

I'm a military wife that homeschools her four fairly well-behaved kids.  I make as much food as I can from scratch, because I think it's the best for us.  I garden, because I think it's important that my kids not only know where their food comes from, but how to grow it should the need arise.  I can and freeze produce from my garden every summer.  I grind my own wheat and bake my own bread.  I type really fast (it was 72 wpm in high school), I talk really fast, and I learn really fast.  I'm really smart.  I can read a book in a day (and that's when I'm going slowly).  I can play piano and flute.  I teach Sunday School with my hubby, and we host home group.  I'm not afraid to speak in front of large groups.  I try to work out three times a week.  I've painted several rooms in the house (including the really tall walls in the living room).  I've made curtains for the kitchen and play room.  I move heavy furniture when I'm bored.  I make a heck of an apple pie.  I use coupons and sometimes I walk out of the grocery store with the store paying ME to take groceries.  And this isn't even everything I was doing in the last place we lived (where I helped run a women's Bible study group, was on staff at church, and counseled several women).

I don't try to do all this.  I really don't.  I just do it because it needs to be done and I'm right here to do it.  I'm a big proponent of "bloom where you're planted".  But the trouble with these wonderful talents that God has blessed me with is this - people think I'm perfect...and worse than that, I expect myself to be perfect.

I'm not.

What you don't see is what happens on the inside.  All this "talent" can make me feel like I'm "wasting" it by being a wife and stay-at-home mom.  I don't say "no" to a lot of things because, as a friend once said, I CAN do it and I love the challenge of getting it done.  You don't hear the mean things I say to myself because I've yet again said something stupid, or not done something perfectly.  There's a song by Francesca Battastelli with a line, "perfection is my enemy".  It is.  I can beat myself up incessantly over the tiniest little thing that no one else would ever notice. My brain never shuts off.

So when I hear someone (several people, actually) say, "when I look at you, I see the perfect wife, the perfect mom, the perfect 'whatever'", I just want to be sucked in by the ground, never to be seen again.  I don't want to be the person that people don't like because "she can do everything,  why would she need me?"

I am the way I am because God made me this way.  I guess He knew that I was going to be a lonely little girl that needed to be able to make friends easily.... a military wife with a hubby who's gone a bit.... a homeschooling mom to four kids... someone who needs to be able to get it all done....but it's not me.  It's God.

It's God, it's God, it's God.  He is the only reason I can do any of this.

More than Enough

This is a note I wrote on Facebook back in 2009.  I was looking for it, because I was kind of feeling the rotten feelings pop up again and I needed to re-read this truth.  

I knew it with the certainty of a child. Not that one is no longer certain of things as an adult, but that certainty is less…well, certain.

I knew it was my fault my dad left, and this new man, who also wanted to be called “dad”, came into our lives…and it was also my fault that the new man and my mother fought constantly.

I have always – or at least as long as I can remember – been stubborn and smart – and everyone told me I was. I wonder if I felt a certain amount of power. Anyway…I remember nothing of Karl (my biological dad) from my childhood. Small wonder. As a Navy dad, he wasn’t around a lot.

I do remember, however, him coming to see us after the divorce. Or rather, I don’t remember him, but how I cried and begged him not to leave me again. I think we were living in South Carolina at the time. After that, my mom asked him not to return – it caused too much turmoil in our lives.

But, just the same, I was certain it was all my fault. Why he never visited, why my mom & new dad fought – it always seemed to be about me. The fighting actually was. I remember being woken up from a sound sleep to “participate” in the fight about something (again) that I had done.

I finally came to believe that it was not only my personality – no – it was my very PERSON that offended him (my step-dad) – even the way I looked. I am, and always have been, the spitting image of my bio father. I started to think that it didn't matter what I did – one look at me would set him off.

I was too smart, too stubborn, too bossy, too quick, too stupid, too careless, too irresponsible, too…. MUCH. 

And that’s how I defined myself – for a very long time.

I finally realized my need for something else to define my life in my senior year in high school. So much was expected of me. I would be at least in the top ten – but how disappointing to know I would not – could not – be valedictorian (really – next to Maciek? No one could!). I needed to be well-rounded for college applications – yet my activities’ schedules interfered with our “so-called’ family times – usually everyone cleaning a different area of the house.

I was an A-student, a drum major, ran track, had a job, in the school musical, on Steering Committee for Model Assembly, took ballet, played flute (band, All-State, and flute quartet), babysat, chorus. I was drinking Maalox and my joints were swollen for no reason. The one person from whom I needed to hear “good job” could no more have said it than I could have grown wings.

I hated myself and knew everyone else did too. So, I considered suicide. Wrote it in my journal how I would do it. My ex-boyfriend, Jody, saved my life. He turned me into my guidance counselor. I remember her saying a few months before this, “you look like you’re all together, but it’s being held by a band-aid, isn’t it?”

Long story short…I learned who my friends were. Jody, Marc, Prune, Bunny, Deed. Those were my real friends. 

I was required to attend counseling with the whole family. Stupid, pointless…I walked out. And the whole family followed – was I that powerful at 16?

My parents acquiesced and said I didn’t have to attend college right away – what a relief! Since I was 10, all I had heard was, “you’re going to college and you’ll have to pay for it yourself”. I had such potential, you see.

I tried for a few years to find someone who would love me for ME. That didn’t work so well, but God redeemed a few of those relationships. Out of the worst of those, I came to know Christ as my Savior – as someone who just loved me.

I believed with all my heart that Christ was the only way I was going to get to heaven. I knew how I was – I wasn’t that stupid! But I also knew I had a lot of work to do while I was still here.

Fifteen years later, we moved to West Virginia. No, not in a million years would I have chosen to live here, but yet, here we were.

Through this church, I have come to realize I am not TOO everything. I am Christ’s workmanship created to do good works that he has prepared in advance for me to do. However, these good works are NOT required in order for God to love me.

I want other Christians to see what they’re missing. They don’t have to spend their Christian walk performing for God, doubting Him. He actually loves me – really. He actually WANTS to spend time with me. He doesn’t just tolerate me. He wants to be kind – IS kind to me. He sings over me. He woos me. He loves me beyond all measure. 

I can believe Him – he has chosen, blessed, forgiven, adopted and redeemed me. 

I am, once again, certain – with a child-like certainty of who I am. I am Erin, whom Christ loves.

What I REALLY Want

I have an eating problem.  No, I'm not a hundred pounds overweight, so you can't tell, but I roam the house looking for food some most days.

For instance, this evening.  What I REALLY wanted was a bowl of Frosted Flakes cereal.  (We had a very late lunch, so we didn't do dinner.)  We don't have any Frosted Flakes.  So I had a piece of pineapple, a glass of water, a few jalapeno kettle chips, a glass of water, some cheddar & sour cream chips, another drink of water, and finally a slice of marzipan stollen.

None of those "did it" for me.  But I am full, even though I'm not satisfied.

Read that last sentence again - I'll wait.

How many times does that describe my body...my mind...my very soul.  I hunt around for "stuff" to fill me, but what I REALLY want, I don't get, usually because of my own personal choice to take something lesser.

I REALLY want to follow Christ ever so closely.  I REALLY want to know God intimately, trust Him, rest in Him.  I REALLY want to believe that God not only loves me and gave His son for me, but that He likes me.

What do I take instead?  Facebook postings to see who I can rile up or get a positive response from.  I escape in TV or a book.  I get my worth through my cooking, my "wife-ness", or my children.  All of those are idols, and all are filling, but not satisfying.

Parenting is HARD

One of the most encouraging verses in the Bible about parenting is in Judges.  I hear you scoff, "Judges?"  Yes, Judges.

Manoah and his wife have been childless.  The angel of the Lord appears to the wife and tells her she's going to conceive and have a son.  Then he instructs her as to what she must do - drink no wine or fermented drink and eat nothing unclean.

The angel of the Lord comes back later and this time Manoah gets to talk to him too.  Manoah asked him, "When your words are fulfilled, what is to be the rule for the boy's life and work?"  That's me, wondering what the rules are to be for my kids....what will their future look like?

The angel of the Lord answered, "Your wife must do all that I have told her."  He repeats the previous instructions and says again, "She must do everything I have commanded her."

I LOVE that.  Did you figure it out?  We're not supposed to worry about our kids and their future.  We know what we're supposed to do (read the Bible, attend church, pray, be generous, love one another, etc., etc.), and God is going to take care of our kids' future.  It's not our job to know what they'll do for a job.  It's our job to train them in the way they should go....to bring them up in the fear of the Lord....to teach them to love the Lord our God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind, and with all their strength....to teach them while we walk along the road, while we sit at home....to discipline and disciple them.  And frankly, that's more than enough for us to do!

I had very wise Sunday school teachers when my kids were very little.  They told me, "no guilt, no glory."  When you've done the best you can, following God as well as you can, you take no guilt on yourselves as to how your children turn out.....nor do you get the glory.  Samuel (Old Testament) was raised by Eli.  So were Eli's sons.  Eli's sons turned out bad and were struck down by God.  Samuel turned out very well.  Same parenting.  So what's the difference?  God.  God.  God.

He makes all the difference.

Birds at the Feeder

We've started feeding the birds.  I had found four little feeders that stick to the window at Dollar General last summer on clearance for $1.  Finally got them up right after the first of the year.  What fun!

We have seen goldfinches (and talked about winter and summer plumage), house finches, sparrows of all types, cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, tufted titmice, a downy woodpecker, and a silly red-bellied woodpecker that tried to sit on our little feeder on the window.  (He eventually gave up and went to the BIG feeder)

I sat and watched them the other day - right after hubby & I had taught a Sunday School class on how God takes care of us like He takes care of the birds.  The birds were so beautiful.  Even the "plain" ones, like the juncos.  And I thought about how God made each person beautiful - even if they're "plain".  None of the birds were wishing they were as pretty as a cardinal, or as big as the blue jay.  They just enjoyed the food (that they didn't have to go far to find), and brought praise to God as they went about their day.

My days seem ordinary and plain, but I can bring glory to God just by living.  The question then is, "do I?"