Paralyzed By Perfection

So, it's already January 21st, and I realize that I haven't posted a blog entry on either of my blogs since November 30th.  I've been contemplating why it's taken me so long to feel motivated to write as of late.  Some if has to do with the crazy fall we had, and then we moved into Christmas, New Year's and birthdays.  I have a few "rough drafts" saved, but nothing compelling...no motivation until today.

Do you know the old saying that says "work before you play"? This is the concept of getting all your work done before you relax or rest.  Well, I'm realizing that I know how to take this to an extreme.  I often make sure my entire house is clean from top to bottom before I'll sit down to eat lunch or play with my kids.  All the nooks and crannies of my closets must be clean and organized before we'll have someone over for dinner.  Every item on the to-do list must be checked off before I will sit down to watch the latest episode of "The Middle".  This is why I'm almost six years behind in my scrapbooking.  I don't have time because work always trumps play.

This is a great trait to have in some areas, but it's also terrible in that I have to force myself to play with my kids - really play with them.  I love playing board games, but pretend is really hard for me.  Caris is helping me in this area, because she has a wonderful imagination and it forces me to play.

Perfectionism is a struggle.  The pressure to be perfect hits from all sides - reading all of the whole food blogs, facebook, and pinterest.  The enemy of comparison makes us feel like we're never enough.

I'm never a good enough:

           Wife...
           Mom...
           Daughter...
           Friend...
       
Because I don't:

           Homeschool
           Give my kids homemade birthday parties
           Have a blog that lots of people read and follow
           Adopt
           Write a book
           Eat a 100% organic, unprocessed food diet

So, there you have it - my struggles and feelings of inferiority.

When Toby goes in for surgeries, especially when they are planned in advance, I go through this really strange bear-hibernation mode.  The week before the event when I could be freezing meals, making calls, cleaning house, I'm paralyzed and don't want to do anything but nap and vegetate.  It's almost like I go into this survival mode where I have to conserve all my energy and brace myself at the wheel before the chaos hits.  This tendency of mine is where I thought up the name of this blog - "My Life as an Oxymoron."  Most people wouldn't even guess that I can be this way.  I'm paralyzed by perfection - either give it all 100% or nothing.  Go hard or go home!

God is teaching me how to function in the chaos of our lives.  I have felt small victories on those "feel like doing nothing days" when I take the time to play with my kids, do laundry, and plan a meal.  He's also showing me that the path He has for my life is different than anyone else - even close friends who are also special needs mommies.  My path is different; it's the one that He has chosen for me. I need to stop comparing and do what He has called me to do.

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent", Eleanor Roosevelt said.

Several years ago God gave me this verse in II Peter 1:3

"seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence."  

As a child of God, He has given us (me) His power to do what we He has called us - in that it pertains to life and godliness, and it's His calling.  In many ways it's a battle of the mind and heart to stop comparing self to others, and get on our knees to find out what God has called us to do.

Could it be homeschooling?   Possibly
Could it be to write a book?  Possibly
Could it be to be the wife and mom He is calling me to be?  Definitely yes...and that's where the time on my knees comes in.  He's calling me to find out what His plan is - not to be paralyzed by perfectionism - the need to have everything perfect before I can function.  He wants me as the broken vessel to function even when my clay pot is full of holes.

So, my new challenge is something called "Hello Mornings", started by the ladies at Inspired To Action .  Hello Mornings is a way to encourage Christian women to  have the habit of waking up early to experience quality time with God, intentionally planning their day, and exercising.  Right now there is open registration for  a new winter challenge, complete with accountability groups and a Bible study.

Ever since I went to a woman's retreat in the fall, God has been calling me to be more intentional in my role as a child of God, wife, and mother, and this is helping me do that.  Anyone that knows me, knows that I LOVE to stay up late and sleep in.  My nice warm bed is often my favorite place to be, and so getting up at 5:30 a.m. is difficult, but God is giving me His divine power to do this. I have already started, even though the challenge isn't official until January 28th, and the days I do, I feel wonderful.  My afternoon times when the three boys are in school and Caris is napping, I have more time to get other things done, and maybe even one of these days...scrapbook!

Insecurity

Conor didn't make the team.
So, what does that have to do with me?

A lot.

I'm upset about it - ranting at my husband, how is this fair?  He's only in fourth grade and he got cut from a team. Later tonight I went for a run, and began to pray.  I'm feeling overwhelmed today by Toby's surgeries coming up, and now this - rejection.

I begin to ask myself, what's the deeper issue here?  Why am I so upset about this (even more upset than Conor)?

It's rejection, and I feel it - personally.  I'm not good enough.  My son isn't good enough.  Instead of trusting that this is part of God's bigger plan, I'm concerned about myself and being left out. I feel rejected because Conor wasn't chosen.

Then, I remember our pastor's message from a few weeks ago about a godly woman  "Don't place your hope in outward things in outward beauty - in acceptance from others.  He spoke about when a godly woman speaks wisdom comes from her mouth.  (Ouch!  That certainly wasn't coming out of my mouth earlier today).

The bottom line was none of this was a personal attack, and my value shouldn't from that anyway.  My value comes from God.  He created us - He created me.  Over the past week the Holy Spirit has been whispering to me in little ways to get my value from Him.  I have been seeing it in little ways, especially when I find the need to make excuses to others about something they may not accept me for.

For instance..

Even when I'm tempted to say to a friend that stops by the house, "Don't mind me, I didn't take shower this morning or put make-up on, and I have more acne on my face than a sixteen year old. I usually don't look this bad!"

The Holy Spirit whispers, "Don't, it doesn't matter what they think, your value doesn't come from your outward appearance."

Even when I'm tempted to cover up my running shirt in the midst of a crowd of people because my fat is hanging over the edge.

The Holy Spirit says, "Don't, it doesn't matter what they think, your value doesn't come from your outward appearance."

Even when I'm tempted to chew somebody out because our son didn't make the team.

The Holy Spirit says, "Don't, his value doesn't come from making the team - and neither does yours.  I love you just the way you are, and maybe I have something else planned for you."

As I was running this wonderful song came up on my ipod by Building 429 called "Love Has Been Spoken"
I highly recommend you purchase it and download it.  The words that stuck out to me the most were this:

"Fearfully and wonderfully made.  Don't you know that you and I we're not a mistake.  Oh, if you could only see His arms are wide open.  Oh, it's okay to be humbled and broken.  So, let your heart be free because love has been spoken.  Love has been spoken."

It's okay to be humbled and broken.  God's plans are so much better than anything I could come up with on my own. I'm not exactly sure what is next, but in the mean time I'm working on listening to the Holy Spirit's still small voice speaking His truth into my soul that my value does not come from outward things.  I don't need to worry about what others think.  My value comes form Him.

He loves me.
Unconditionally.
Eternally.
End of story.
Love has been spoken.

Messy Parenting

 Parenting is messy sometimes.  I’m not just talking about the vomit, bibs slathered with baby food, muddy cleats, upside down bowls of oatmeal on the floor (oh yes that happened last week), and cheerios ground into the carpet.  The emotional and spiritual pieces are complicated too.  When confronted with a really bad choice one of our children made I began to question,

                 

                “How could they even think of doing that?”

                “I thought I did a good enough “parenting” job to guard against this.

The truth is I don’t like messes, physical, emotional or spiritual ones.  Everything is supposed to be neat and tidy – the house, the car, our children’s behavior.

But, that IS NOT reality (and our house is messy, six people live there)

I realize I try to parent in such a way that my kids won’t make messes, so they won’t make big mistakes.  I’ve even been known to clean my toddlers’ hands in the middle of a meal just to cut down on the messy end result of dinner (Oh yes, I am OCD!)  Of course there are little mistakes – things we deal with on a daily basis like bad attitudes, disobedience, fighting, screaming instead of using our words to ask for something (ahem, Caris), but not a big thing like this – a really bad choice that reveals what is truly going on in the heart of a child.  Please don’t misunderstand, we do work hard to get to the heart of the matter in all those above things, but they just seem little compared to this.  This is where parenting gets messy:  prayer, confrontation, confession, scripture and consequences.  Did I mention the prayer part?

“Where’s the balance between mercy and discipline?  Please, God give us wisdom.  Where did they even get the idea to do that anyway?”

Answer: in his heart,

Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?

A wise friend told me – what a privilege for God to reveal our kids’ heart to us so that we can point them to Jesus’ grace.  A privilege, huh?  This situation is a privilege.  Yes, I have to keep reminding myself that it’s a privilege.

Yes, an opportunity for God to root out the sin, to shape us into who He wants us to be - for God's grace and mercy to be poured out.  Oh yes, there will be consequences - there always are - sin reaps a harvest we don't expect.  This situation is also teaching me that I can't make my kids choose the right way.  Sometimes they have to fall on their faces in the dirt - the dirt of their sin to learn between right and wrong.  I feel like this is a reflection on me -- I'm a poor parent because my child made a bad choice.  It's not - and I take comfort in the face that God is merciful, faithful, and forgiving.  Then, that old Sunday school song popped into my head:

"He's still working on me...to make me what I ought to be.  It took Him just a week to make the moon and stars, the sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars.  How loving and patient He must be.  He's still working on me." 

Thankfully, He is still working on all of us - none are ever a hopeless case.  Through it all I'm learning to embrace the messy parenting.

An explanation

The blog title caught your attention, didn't it?

For many years I have thought about writing a book called "My Life As An Oxymoron".  For some reason I figured the title would catch people's attention.  BUT, since I don't have a whole lot of time to write a book, I figured it was time to start a blog with the same concept.

The theme is contradiction.  Just like an oxymoron is "an epigrammatic effect, by which contradictory terms are used in conjunction", I feel like my life is also a contradiction.

Romans 7:15 sums it up perfectly: "I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."

Why is it that...
     I abhor selfishness in my kids, but then I spent too much time on Facebook when I should be spending time with them?
     I chide my husband about purchasing chocolate covered frozen bananas and how important it is to have whole foods in our house (less than five ingredients or we make it ourselves), and then turn around and eat a snickers (it was a mini-one!)?
     I can trust God in the big things like Toby's surgeries, but yet I want to control all the decisions of every day life?
    I strive to live a godly life, yet fall short every day...

And that's what this blog is all about - falling short every day.  I want to share my thoughts on the contradictions in life, and cling to the mercy that God rains down on me every day.  Thankfully He is gracious and merciful.  He has cleansed away my sin when I chose to put my faith and trust in Him and now:
"His divine power has given us every thing we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness,"  (II Peter 1:3)  He gives me everything I need to strive to live my life perfectly for His glory.   

So here goes...