I wake up to the soft light peering through my bedroom window and shut my eyes back closed again. I think to myself, I need to get up… I’m not a morning person so I lie very still and drift back to sleep. I hear my husband’s alarm go off on his phone and feel the bed move as he hits snooze. My Yorkie is now dancing around on the hardwood below letting us know he is ready to go outside. I finally get my eyes to open fully and turn over to see my husband. He is really beautiful. I especially love him in the mornings. He is so warm and soft, and he smells like fresh linen and what I can only imagine to be heaven. I scoot beside him and put my hand on his chest. I take a minute to just feel his chest rise and fall while I say a prayer over him for the day. I doubt he even knows I do this most days we wake up together. He is my center and my peace on this Earth. He is the one person that I know I can always turn to and count on. He is loving and patient, but brutally honest with me. He is exactly what I need in this life. I kiss his stubbly check and decide to get out of the bed.
I slip on my favorite ratty pink robe, slip on my navy blue house shoes that have unraveling gray bows, and head to the kitchen. I look around our little home and I feel at peace. I love our house. James and I spent many years making it just the way we wanted it. All of my favorite things are situated just where I want them, neat and tidy. I walk down the hall and yell at my pre-teen daughter to get up. This is not a place for gentleness in my life. She is a beast in the morning! I can’t show fear. I walk back to the kitchen and begin making breakfast for my family and brewing me a cup of coffee. I use this time to talk to God about my day. I pray over Hannah and ask God to protect her and guide her through her day. I hate all the darkness in our world that has been accepted as the “norm”. Her mind is young and impressionable. I want so badly for her to never make a mistake, but I know this is not reasonable and she will make plenty of them. My prayer is that I teach her the important things and she always feels like she can talk to me about anything.
I crack an egg and drop its contents into the hot skillet as I yell out a second warning to Hannah to get out of bed. I hear her moan back at me. I push down two pieces of toast and watch the red hot heat begin to crisp the bread. James walks into living area and heads straight to the back door to let the yelping Yorkie back into the house. He follows behind them into the kitchen. I feel his hand on back my back as he reaches around me for his prescriptions. He says, “That smells good. Is your child up yet?” We always refer to her as the other person’s child when she is being difficult. I smile and say, “Of course not.” He turns quickly and heads down the hall to her room banging on the walls and yelling her name to a made up annoying tune. I hear her protest by moaning loudly, “I’m up Dad!” She shifts her feet slowly to the bathroom. I hear her bathroom door shut and I yell, “Hannah! Brush your teeth!” I think to myself, why do I still have to remind an 11 year old to brush her teeth? I run my tongue across my back teeth and feel the crowns that cap my damaged teeth and wish someone would have reminded me as a child. But this is part of what I love about being her mom, and being a wife. I love taking care of these two and offering them all of the love they deserve. They give me so much back, so much that I feel I don’t deserve. I don’t deserve this life. This life is amazing! It is…well…it is perfect. Why do I feel so bad saying that? Why am I supposed to feel bad for verbalizing that this life is perfect to ME? It is.
I have written a lot about my childhood. Most that know my story know that life then was very different than life now. I think many times that the simple perfection I see in this life I live is pure perspective and the humility that perspective instills.per·fect- adjective ˈpərfikt/: having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be.
This word describes my existence perfectly, no pun intended! My life has all the required and desirable elements. It is as good as it is possible to be. I have lived through times of want and even times of need. I have survived with less than was required; much less desirable. I know what it is like to be unhappy. There was a time in my life when I thought that was the only option in life. Option. Now, there is a word. This word brings me to my point. Life is basically options. Every single choice you make has a consequence. You choose to finish high school with good grades. You choose to attend college or enter the workforce after high school. You choose the person you want to marry. You choose to have children. You choose your faith and how you will live and respect it. You choose to go to work every day and how you will perform your task. You choose the type of marriage you will have. You choose how you will raise your children, and so on onto every tiny detail of your existence. The thing that many people don’t realize is that you are free to make any choice you see fit, but you will always face the consequences of those choices.
My poor daughter gets this lecture more than most children probably do. From the tiny cavity she had filled to the first F she received for not turning in an assignment in the 5th grade. Every time something “bad” happens I am quick to remind her of the choice she made that landed her in hot water. I’m sure she silently thinks, This again… Sigh! But, I will continue to remind her that she is in complete control of her destiny. One of my biggest peeves is when people use the scripture that God is in control as an excuse. God is in control, but he expects you to do your part. Don’t pray for God to bless your finances and CHOOSE not draw up a budget. Don’t ask God to bless your marriage and CHOOSE to be a disrespectful spouse. Don’t ask God to lead your family and CHOOSE to put yourself in places where you are easily tempted to stray from his plan. God did not make you to be a mindless person in this world he made you with freewill.
Looking back over my life with James I get frustrated and sometimes downright tickled at the bad choices we made when we were younger (sometimes at the ones we still make today). I know that life could have been so much easier had we not fought ourselves along the way. We created so much financial burden that did not have to exist. I remember sitting up at night with burdens heavy on my mind, occupying the space that God should have held. In those moments I should have realized this truth, but it would take many years before I would come to understand the effect this had on me as an individual, and my family as a whole. Finances alone were not the only bad choices I made.
Let me just go ahead and say I wasn’t the easiest person to love. My husband just read this and shouted a silent AMEN! I was hell on wheels. I had been raised in an inconsistent chaotic, sometimes very unloving environment, so I didn’t know. I. Just. Didn’t. Know. You know what I mean. I was an immature scared little know it all. When I took my vows before God I had probably never even read what the scripture said about being a wife, but my husband CHOSE to love me and see past what I was. He fulfilled his role as husband and taught me what it meant to truly love a spouse…to love another human being. Over the years with prayer I have CHOSEN to learn how to control my temper and my mouth (most days). My mother cussed like a sailor and unfortunately those words slip from my tongue so easily… I have learned what it means to receive unconditional love and give it right back to those around me. It’s tough to make the right choices, but when you do you are at peace and that is priceless. In my opinion peace is worth sharing.
I always tell Hannah (and myself) the hardest person to be honest with is yourself. No one wants to think they are doing anything “wrong”. It is hard to see ourselves as anything other than loving intelligent beings, but the harsh truth is we aren’t sometimes. It’s okay to slip and fall every now and again, heck I feel like I do it daily. What matters is that you are honest with yourself and CHOOSE better for yourself. James and I just recently were talking about how lazy we have gotten about Sunday School. We don’t HAVE to go to Sunday School. It is not required by anyone, but we CHOOSE to do so in order to learn about God and grow in him. It matters to us to grow in our faith and to share it with Hannah. How can we teach her to follow God if we are unsure of our own faith? We can’t.
Somewhere along the way of getting lazy we both drifted away from God just a little. Not necessarily because of Sunday School…that was really just an example. We drifted in our personal walks and we felt it! We were moodier and more anxious about things. We weren’t as attentive to our budget. Just small things that we know we do, and weren’t doing. It took some real moments over the past few months with each other where we were both accountable and CHOSE to get back to where we need to be as individuals, a couple, and a family. The good thing about being a Christian is that you serve a God that doesn’t give up on you…even when he should.
So yes, my life is perfect to me. I made a very important series of decisions over many days that added up to years. I slipped and fell. I prayed and got back up with God’s help. My life could have gone many directions. I could have blamed the outcome on bad choices my parents made, but in the end there are no excuses for your life outside of what you choose to make it. The important thing to remember is happiness truly does not come from anything outside of you…it is what lives in you. If you truly have God in your heart he does use the Holy Spirit to convict your choices. You find yourself content with things, because you aren’t searching for what is missing…what is out of place. We were created for God to live in our hearts…not to be without fault, but to realize when we are and to not be okay with it. We were made to live in his likeness and that is where our soul will always find peace.
So my perfect life that I have chosen is really not in the things outside of me. It is not my very good looking husband, my beautiful daughter, our perfectly decorated little home. It is not in my savings or checking accounts. It is not in the cars we drive. It is his presence that lives inside of me, inside of James and Hannah. It is his peace that resides in us as a family that allows life to have the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics. He makes it as good as it is can possibly be! I know this because there are many people with more than what I have without peace. There are people with less that still have contentment despite their circumstances. The world around us can change, but when we are centered in him we aren’t as shaken.
The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. ~ Proverbs 16:9 (ESV)
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