What It Isn’t

Sometimes I wonder what people would say about us if they lived like a fly on the wall in our house, watching our everyday.

I quickly realize I’m better off not knowing.

Our home is my safest place, which means, it’s where I can be my ugliest. Sure, the no make-up, hair a mess, wearing-baby-puke-as-an-accessory kind of yuck. But also the ugly that an come out of my mouth, my attitude, the way I treat the people I love the most.

I realized something the other night, as I was sitting on the couch with my husband, and we were reminiscing about the past seven years of our marriage. I’ve never lived a day in my adult life without being married to this man. We’ve grown up together while also growing our family, and that small detail is really important.

When January came rolling around earlier this year, I was so excited about the prospect of what 2018 could be. I went ahead and dreamt up these goals for the year that were high-in-the-sky in my mind. Unattainable, for the most part. And you know what? I have almost no intention of reaching the goals.

I was two months out from having my fourth baby, which by the way, left me sore for nearly three months. I was wrangling kids all day everyday, doing some writing here and there, and had zero time for anything besides surviving. Exhausted, strung out, joyful, but just done by 9 PM. I knew when I made this list of goals that they were not happening anytime soon.

But that’s not the point.

You and I are pretty obsessed with making “it all” look good, aren’t we? We snap photos of our best and share them. We type up the stories from our days and post them. We tweet our feels and wait for favorites, create lengthy instastories about God’s revelation in our life, give our opinions a stage, and we just want it all to look the part. I spend too much of my time living there. Don’t you? Obsessively giving our platforms the time of day to appear as if our life is something it just might not be.

But what my life is, honestly, most of you never will see. It’s in hidden moments, behind closed doors, surrounded by walls, and lived out while the people I hold closest are watching. And these goals that I created? I don’t really care if they ever are achieved this year. It is what it is. I have a book list with nearly 20-30 books, and I have read none. Are you with me?

My life and what it isn’t could nearly destroy so much of me. It isn’t all good. It doesn’t even all look that great. And instead of living in this influence culture where we use our voices on the Internet to foster change, I just want to go be that woman. I want to just be the woman that I talk about all the time, the one that struggles hard to just be a decent human and knows it, the one whose kindness isn’t seen by anyone but God, the one who just isn’t concerned with what this all could be. What it isn’t isn’t the point.

Here’s what’s making me say amen:

If He doesn’t matter most, then what matters at all?
I get to be here, all here, wherever “here” is. The whole world can wait while what’s right in front of me has all my attention.
He’s everything.
I don’t need more. If I think for a moment that I don’t have enough of anything, I cheapen the cost of God’s love for me.

It is what it is: He is enough, truly, in all things.