That image I have is so far from me. I fall so short in all areas.
I think as mothers and homemakers, we feel like we need to "have it together" at all times. At. All. Times. I feel that way often, daily even. It comes from keeping up appearances. On Sundays, everyone puts on their Sunday clothes, but most importantly their Sunday faces. We smile and look happy. Greeting each other with hugs or handshakes. We make small talk and act like everything is fine. Our marriages look perfect. Our children are expected to behave. We want our clothes to reflect what we think others expect. Am I right? We are expected to have well-behaved kids. We are expected to keep a perfect home. We are expected to be beautiful all the time.
Fellow homemakers and mother, let me tell you something. When you give up those expectations, it is so freeing! I definitely do not have it together most of the time. My laundry piles up. The dishes always need doing. My room looks like it did when I was a kid, like a tornado went through it, mainly because that's where we live when I'm sick. I look like a mess most of the time in comparison to the ladies from church. Granted, we have a very different belief and understanding about what marriage is and how it should look, so I'm thankful for that lack of the "perfect wife" expectation on my husband's part (I cannot tell you how blessed I am to have a man like that).
"For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." Galatians 1:10I always think about that verse when I'm considering the pressures of motherhood and marriage. Of course, those pressures are generally those I put on myself or what others expect of me (or what I think they expect of me).
Keely and Mommy over a year ago |
Are we supposed to "have it all together"? I don't think so. It's a perception that women have. It's almost as though it's a competition. We have this idea of what the perfect mother is. I hope that as I write and share my short comings and my willingness to admit them, that you will see that no one is perfect but that's what grace is for. That's what God is for.
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