Pursuing Perfection
This post has been brewing in my mind for a while now and while mowing the lawn in the hot sun it really came to light. So if you don't agree then you can just pass this off as a heat induced hallucination :)
I think that this likely came from an amazing book I just finished that I think that every mom I know should read! Seriously! If I had the money to buy it for all my mom friends I would! It is called "10 Habits of Happy Mothers" I know who would want to read that book, gag me! but it was the sub title that originally caught my attention it is "Reclaiming our Passion, Purpose and Sanity" Now that sounds like a book I need to read. It struck a cord with where I am at right now and this book (even though you may not have the same revelation) allowed me to believe in myself as a person again. I know that sounds silly, but there is a part in the book where she encourages her readers to accept who they are not who they expect themselves to be. And wow do we have expectations. These expectations are not only hurting us but it hurts our relationships with other women (not mention our husbands).
If we are hanging around some who is constantly complaining about her looks or how awful her house is, don't you think we will begin to feel worried that if she is judging herself so hard she must be judging us too and that relationship will eventually fade.
It hurts us even when we stop trying to achieve "mom perfection" (whatever that really is) because when we cannot reach this state and we give up, we usually do it with guilt and shame that we couldn't make the cut as a great mom.
This is such a terrible lie! I know I have mentioned this before but I will say it again! We are so inundated with opinions. It used to be that woman only had to worry about opinions and nagging from her mother-in-law and people close to her telling her how to raise her kids (This by the way was in no way a shot at my mother-in-law, I won the lottery with her she is great!) But now we have to contend with the internet and people from all over the world telling us how we should be raising our kids, running our households, how thin we should be and what our homes should look like. It is everywhere and even if we don't realize we are doing it, we are. Woman are very naturally insecure and therefore we compare all the time!! This is so dangerous and hard to cure. Let me just say this..."You are doing a good job!"
I just read a post on facebook this morning I will post it with this blog if you want to read it but it is a short read about letting go and not expecting so much, with a humorous bent. And this leads me to a conversation I had with a friend the other day. We were talking about mothers (she is not one yet but she is learning lots from me, lol, maybe) anyway we were talking about the expectations placed on woman today and we were thinking back to our childhoods and what we remember from our moms. And well in all honesty I do not remember how much time my mom spent playing with me on the ground, or how clean our house was, or what she weighed. You know what I do remember? I remember her being home everyday when we got off the bus! I remember those special days when she would have made fresh bread and we ate it warm with peanut butter for our after school snack, I remember crying in her arms, for one reason or another, and she just holding me, stroking my hair and letting me know I was loved.
I know that all of you do not have all good memories from your childhood, my mom was not perfect either, she would be the first to admit that, and in all honesty I have no idea how to help you reconcile that but I know that if you didn't feel loved then you have the opportunity to make sure your kids do.
What I am trying to say is that you don't have to do things the way everyone else does it! Do it your way! If that means everybody eats breakfast in the living-room watching tv so you can get things together in the morning, who cares? If that means that when you get frustrated you yell, deal with it. Don't beat yourself up, examine your own heart and fix what you need to fix not because someone else says to but because God is challenging you to work on it. We all lose patience and some days supper doesn't happen and the kids eat KD and ice cream.
What I am trying to say in all of this is find the beauty in who you are and the way you are. Stop expecting perfection, there is beauty in our flaws!!! Stop editing your life of all its natural beauty! There are things about all of us that God put there for a reason accept who He made you to be and the passions He has placed in you. Stop listen to the constant echos of perfection our world throws at us. Believe me no one can look like a magazine model or that pintrest post! Most are professionally edited! Don't edit yourself.
I recently had an unmarried friend tell me a story about some mothers she knows comparing stretch marks and body changes since childbirth, and she laughed that after hearing all their horror stories she wasn't sure she wanted to do that to go through that. And I laughed with her thinking how much our bodies do change bringing lives into the world. But thinking back to that conversation I realize how quickly we are to judge ourselves and try to remove those precious symbols of a life that once grew inside of us and a soul we brought into this world. Sure we may not look like a model in a bikini anymore but look at the joy we brought into the world with our child and those battle scars! Men are proud of scars :)
I am beginning to believe more and more real beauty in found is our imperfections, they make us who we are, they challenge us to grow and most of all they allow God to shine through our weakness. Look at who you are and what you can do, you are amazing! Embrace what you do well and let go of what you are not!
1 Corinthians 12:9
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
I think that this likely came from an amazing book I just finished that I think that every mom I know should read! Seriously! If I had the money to buy it for all my mom friends I would! It is called "10 Habits of Happy Mothers" I know who would want to read that book, gag me! but it was the sub title that originally caught my attention it is "Reclaiming our Passion, Purpose and Sanity" Now that sounds like a book I need to read. It struck a cord with where I am at right now and this book (even though you may not have the same revelation) allowed me to believe in myself as a person again. I know that sounds silly, but there is a part in the book where she encourages her readers to accept who they are not who they expect themselves to be. And wow do we have expectations. These expectations are not only hurting us but it hurts our relationships with other women (not mention our husbands).
If we are hanging around some who is constantly complaining about her looks or how awful her house is, don't you think we will begin to feel worried that if she is judging herself so hard she must be judging us too and that relationship will eventually fade.
It hurts us even when we stop trying to achieve "mom perfection" (whatever that really is) because when we cannot reach this state and we give up, we usually do it with guilt and shame that we couldn't make the cut as a great mom.
This is such a terrible lie! I know I have mentioned this before but I will say it again! We are so inundated with opinions. It used to be that woman only had to worry about opinions and nagging from her mother-in-law and people close to her telling her how to raise her kids (This by the way was in no way a shot at my mother-in-law, I won the lottery with her she is great!) But now we have to contend with the internet and people from all over the world telling us how we should be raising our kids, running our households, how thin we should be and what our homes should look like. It is everywhere and even if we don't realize we are doing it, we are. Woman are very naturally insecure and therefore we compare all the time!! This is so dangerous and hard to cure. Let me just say this..."You are doing a good job!"
I just read a post on facebook this morning I will post it with this blog if you want to read it but it is a short read about letting go and not expecting so much, with a humorous bent. And this leads me to a conversation I had with a friend the other day. We were talking about mothers (she is not one yet but she is learning lots from me, lol, maybe) anyway we were talking about the expectations placed on woman today and we were thinking back to our childhoods and what we remember from our moms. And well in all honesty I do not remember how much time my mom spent playing with me on the ground, or how clean our house was, or what she weighed. You know what I do remember? I remember her being home everyday when we got off the bus! I remember those special days when she would have made fresh bread and we ate it warm with peanut butter for our after school snack, I remember crying in her arms, for one reason or another, and she just holding me, stroking my hair and letting me know I was loved.
I know that all of you do not have all good memories from your childhood, my mom was not perfect either, she would be the first to admit that, and in all honesty I have no idea how to help you reconcile that but I know that if you didn't feel loved then you have the opportunity to make sure your kids do.
What I am trying to say is that you don't have to do things the way everyone else does it! Do it your way! If that means everybody eats breakfast in the living-room watching tv so you can get things together in the morning, who cares? If that means that when you get frustrated you yell, deal with it. Don't beat yourself up, examine your own heart and fix what you need to fix not because someone else says to but because God is challenging you to work on it. We all lose patience and some days supper doesn't happen and the kids eat KD and ice cream.
What I am trying to say in all of this is find the beauty in who you are and the way you are. Stop expecting perfection, there is beauty in our flaws!!! Stop editing your life of all its natural beauty! There are things about all of us that God put there for a reason accept who He made you to be and the passions He has placed in you. Stop listen to the constant echos of perfection our world throws at us. Believe me no one can look like a magazine model or that pintrest post! Most are professionally edited! Don't edit yourself.
I recently had an unmarried friend tell me a story about some mothers she knows comparing stretch marks and body changes since childbirth, and she laughed that after hearing all their horror stories she wasn't sure she wanted to do that to go through that. And I laughed with her thinking how much our bodies do change bringing lives into the world. But thinking back to that conversation I realize how quickly we are to judge ourselves and try to remove those precious symbols of a life that once grew inside of us and a soul we brought into this world. Sure we may not look like a model in a bikini anymore but look at the joy we brought into the world with our child and those battle scars! Men are proud of scars :)
I am beginning to believe more and more real beauty in found is our imperfections, they make us who we are, they challenge us to grow and most of all they allow God to shine through our weakness. Look at who you are and what you can do, you are amazing! Embrace what you do well and let go of what you are not!
1 Corinthians 12:9
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
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