Seeking Imperfection

We all know the days....the day when everything goes wrong.

It can happen before your feet even hit the floor, but you know it from its familiar visits--- from the minute the day begins multiple supernatural-like events begin to happen in your home. For example:

Two children (or three) are bleeding before breakfast.

The baby's diaper comes off and smears a 'special scented gift' all down the front stairs five minutes before your friend is supposed to stop by. To top it off, they thought they would slide down the stairs in it for a thrill ride and hardly noticed all the children sitting there laughing and pointing at them since they are covered from head to toe.

The children are all screaming and have eachother in a choke hold (and they are only under the age of 2) and right about then the phone rings and your husband wants to know how your day is going.

The dishwasher's heating cycle is burning something instead of drying it so it begins to smoke.

Breakfast is burnt because you are distracted with the smoking dishwasher.

Your child spends all morning trying to find his book for school and you don't realize he is missing until its 'too late' because now he has run upstairs to report that-----

The baby tried flushing the toy fire truck down the toilet.

The toilet is clogged from the skillfully inserted fire truck and thus begins overflowing all over the floor and to top it off, it wasn't flushed from the person who used it before he thought he'd try his stunt.

And I could go on, but really, you all know what can happen before noon in a family of ten , don't you? Come on now, surely you have all experienced this in your own home!

So as a word of encouragement to you, I want you all to know that I am a mom just like you! This blog has pretty pictures and the inspiring quotes because *I* am the one who needs the encouragement, just as much as the next mom. There is no such thing as the 'perfect' mother and we should not kill overselves trying to achieve this with lofty expectations of ourselves and others in our family---this is not building up our homes but instead tearing it down. I would never want any mom or wife to get discouraged and think they have to live up to some faux supermom model that is unachievable and unreal. Yes indeed, imperfection is freedom and that means I am okay if my children sometimes jump into the van before we go to the store and have mismatched shoes, clothes that are backwards or sometimes they are just missing underwear altogether (but thankfully, not pants!)

Through it all I have learned to keep my sense of humor (I think), and thankful that imperfection is a part of life. This was hard for me at first, as I am sure for other moms well. I thought I had it all together with four children and knew what I was doing and then came #5 and #6 and then lo and behold--- baby boy twins to make #7 & 8! What on earth was I thinking? I knew nothing about this mothering journey. Gone was the pride---banished! The Lord knew just how to humble me, indeed.

There is freedom in mothering, ladies! And that is imperfection!

The next is God's forgiving grace.


Wouldn't you agree? ;)





(Homeschooling cartoons by Todd Wilson @ Family Man Ministries)




(Encouraging myself during the holidays works for me!)

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