A very nice lady that I had become acquainted with once called me a perfect little Barbie who has all her children put together nicely in a row. She meant it as a compliment and I love her for it but it was a comment that grinded me like nails on a chalkboard. It caught me off guard and I thought really, as hard as I try some days to have it all together, I am certain I have never accomplished it. I almost immediately asked my sister what this woman was talking about and she assured me that no one really thought that about me. And I found I was relieved. That may sound silly; I should have loved a compliment like that, right? But that person this lady described is a fairy tale. She is not real, and because of that, she is completely unrelatable.
God has put a conviction in my heart to love people where they are, encourage them to grow spiritually and to use the experiences of my own life’s messes to help others. The blogs that I write are things that God is either reminding me of or teaching me. I am not a fictional character, I am a real live person with mess like everyone else and I will be until the day I die no matter how hard I try to have it all together. Life’s messes can sometimes be embarrassing, uncomfortable and just plain ugly. So here is just one little bit of proof that I am not a Barbie who has all of life figured out.
"Self-pity is of the devil, if I go off on that line I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world." Oswald Chambers
You can look at another person’s life and fairly quick recognize self-pity. Even in our own lives we can look back and recognize our own moments of self-pity but when you are in the midst of a pity party sometimes it is a bit more difficult to realize what is going on. Well, I had my own little pity party this last week. It was a beauty too.
I had been sick all week; I was physically drained along with some emotional baggage. I had recently visited my family for about two weeks. I have a new niece who is beautiful, and two other nieces who are growing so fast. I was missing my mom, my sister and the joy of being an aunt up close instead of from far away. I was really missing my friends and the opportunity to just sit with them and enjoy their company, their wisdom and friendship.
Honestly, these are things that hit me from time to time but I handle it. I know God has brought us where we are and He will give us everything we need. I find peace in that. But on that day I was having a hard time holding on to that perspective. I had let myself get so worn out that those feelings blew up and I spiraled down right into a massively huge pity party. I blamed my husband and kids for my being so exhausted. I was crying about being lonely and missing everyone, all of which, of course, to my husband whom I made feel terrible.
Through all this I kept praying, trusting in God because if I couldn’t understand anything else I could understand that I was freaking out and I needed God to put me back together. I kept praying and repeating over and over in my head the truths of God that His word tells me and that is how I fell asleep. The next morning God cleared the fog away. He helped me take a step back and see what I had done. The key word here being I, no one else had made me exhausted, I did that to myself.
Each day I got up that week I felt sicker. Each day I would rest a little when I would usually exercise, but that is all I did to take care of myself. I home school, so school went on as normal, chores and dinners. I did my best to make sure that everything was not interrupted by me being sick. Why? Because I didn’t want the kids to miss a day of school, I didn’t want the house messy, I didn’t want Josh to have to make dinner. There are a lot of I’s in that sentence. So by the end of the week I was exhausted.
Philippians 4:8 tells us to think on things that are true. I blamed everyone else for my exhaustion. I was not thinking on things that were true. Because what was true was that my kids would have loved a day off school to chill and cuddle, they are very capable of picking up there own messes, not to mention the only one the mess bothers is me. Josh would have happily come home and made dinner or picked up a pizza. So if I were thinking on what was true I would have seen that I was the only one to blame.
That day when God helped me step back and take a good look at myself I actually learned several things. But the one I want to point out today is that my own expectations were what exhausted me; they weren’t my husband’s or my kid’s, they were mine. On a normal day, in a normal week there really was nothing wrong with my expectations. But this was not a normal week. I needed to be willing to step back and give my expectations a break, I should have never of clung to them so tightly.
We all have our moments of weakness where the pity party sets in, but lets not camp there. In those moments let’s think on what is true, let’s check our expectations and see if we are maybe holding on a little to tightly. I learned nothing in my pity party; I was too focused on me. Where I learned was on the other side of it. I believe God used it for good and I pray I learned what I needed to know.
Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
I hope that when my kids are older that they will be able to say of me that I hunger and thirst after righteousness. I don’t want to hear that I am a Barbie or that I have it all together. I don’t want to be thought of as some fake fictional character. I want to be relatable and even though it can be embarrassing, uncomfortable or ugly, I want my kids to see that I mess up too. But most of all I want them to see that I come out on the other side, I learn from it and let God use it as He sees fit. I want them to see God at work and know that God can work in them too.
Do you hunger and thirst after righteousness? Do you put that above looking perfect on the outside? Are you focusing on what is true? I pray that you will take some time to look at your own hearts and ask yourself these questions.
