Sometimes I make real “my-momma-taught-me-to-cook” meals for supper, other times I make Ramen noodles…and other other times I sit here and watch my husband cook while thinking about how much I do not want to cook. Sometimes I have every ounce of laundry in the house done, other times I have two baskets full of clean unfolded laundry and approximately seven loads of dirty laundry…and other other times no one can find clean underwear or socks. Then to recover from that situation, I do astronomical amounts of laundry in one day, chunk it all on my bed and then throw it (unfolded) into baskets for each of the six humans living under this roof.
Every now and then for like 2 minutes out of every 158 days I feel like I’m crushing it as an adult. More often than not I question why the world didn’t make me take a test to pass “grown-upping 101.” (Let me first note that this pertains solely to my home-life. Back in the day, when I had a real-life 8-5 grown up job with the title of “director,” I was crushing it in the organization and responsibility departments. So if you are a human who one day is stalking my Facebook page to see if you should hire me to come work for you, feel free to request a sample scholarly paper or other type of artifact from my working days. I’ve got you!)
It’s summer. During summer, I stay home with my kids, plant plants that die soon after being planted, go swimming, watch my kids play in the sprinkler, sit on my back porch and listen to thunder storms, go for circus style walks with four kids and a dog, mow my yard, chop old tree stumps with an axe, and get really dirty. I normally shower often, but I just realized I could smell myself.
No day looks the same for me and my family. Somedays Kyle and I crush parenthood. Somedays the children appear to crush us and mom forgets to shower. BUT…it’s getting easier in some regards. Currently our kids are 9, 7, 5, and 2. (When they were 6, 4, 2, and 0 we were in a pandemic and I… well I’ll let you imagine what my thoughts were.) Two of them can fully bathe themselves; an additional one is very close and if he’d stop using excessive amounts of “man soap” we’d be at three fully bathing themselves.
I like Facebook. I also think it sucks, but I like people and when I don’t get to see them face-to-face it’s nice to see them virtually. More often than not we see the best of people on social media. We don’t see the ugly on a day-to-day basis and the majority aren’t going to tell you they can smell themselves, but we all know we have the potential to stink. And for all of us who are not excessively neat and organized people, behind that photo taken in a nice, clean, living-room posted for the world to see…there was probably a toy, a dirty diaper, a piece of trash or all of the above that was chunked out of the background seconds before snapping the photo.
Give yourself a bit of grace. You know your worst and are constantly seeing everyone else’s best. You will not have everything together every day. If you are anything like me, you will not have everything together hardly ever. Sometimes you will feel like a champion. Sometimes you will give a valiant effort and fall short. Sometimes you may not even show up for the party. Wherever you land today, don’t forget the point. Don’t lose sight of the big picture. Don’t be so caught up in the mundane that we forget to sit at the feet of Jesus and adore him.
At the end of Ecclesiastes (12:13), it says, “Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty.” Our contentment and purpose cannot be found in human striving. It will leave us grasping for the wind…and for all of us Oklahomans, you know it cannot be caught…and neither can the hat, ball, or bucket that is being blown across the Great Salt Plains flats by the Oklahoma wind.
Okay…bye friends! 🙂
Hey Brooke Fuller 