In my “Some Day’s” post, my friend Shayla commented that she appreciates it that I don’t always write about a “perfect life”:). I thought about this a bit after reading it and decided I have a few things to say about that (BIG surprise huh?).
I think there are several contributing factors that enable me to write about REAL life and not life through rose colored glasses. I’ll list them:
1. I have come to the realization that from the depths of my heart…I write for me not an audience. When I started getting heavy web traffic during Ty’s NICU stay (VERY heavy traffic – it was costing me over 100.00 a month to support the traffic) – I questioned my motivation in writing at times. I am super self introspective and I self analyze often. I am convinced that only God truly knows me because I don’t trust my opinion of myself:). Over the last few months though, I have realized that I almost never check web traffic because it doesn’t occur to me. I don’t even look at the counter at the bottom of this page (although I probably will today because till this moment I had forgotten it was there). I only know who is reading by who is commenting because I just don’t investigate further. I don’t write every week and I don’t feel guilty when I don’t write. Why? Because as much as I love my family and friends, I don’t write for them. When I have something to say, I am motivated to write. I write for my little family. To help me work through my own heart circumstances and to provide a record for my children and grandchildren. My hope is that they read this someday and they know that their mama loved them and hoped for them as unconditionally as she knew how. I want them to see themselves through my eyes because I think they are the most treasured little people on the planet. Most importantly, I want them to know God as daddy and I think when they read about mommy’s spiritual journey’s, and than they evaluate that against the circumstances of life that they will remember, I can only hope that they will see a picture of a relationship that they will want to embrace fully themselves. That is why I write.
2. My life is NOT perfect. I am NOT perfect. My husband is NOT perfect. My kids are NOT perfect. My house is NOT perfect. My church is NOT perfect. I would be a pretty bold liar to paint this picture. When I write about real stuff, other people can relate. We need each other. One thing that I personally “get” out of this blog, is the most sincere and heartfelt affirmation from other people that I could have ever imagined. I feel so incredibly blessed by this. It helps so much on hard days to have other mom’s simply say “Boy howdy I hear you.” It’s sharing in the triumphs AND travails that bond people.
3. This is not my home. I do not expect a perfect life. I really truly don’t. I expect a life of blessing mixed with tears and that is what it has been. I am not home yet. I am getting ready to start a study on Heaven with my adult Sunday School class and I am so excited to teach on this. Heaven is my home. My future life is where I can expect perfection and I am looking forward to it. I’ll close this with words to a song that have always really grabbed me. It’s by Audio Adrenaline (Underdog rocks!:):
Good Life
I???ve watched my dreams all fade away
And blister in the sun
Everything I???ve ever had is unraveled and undone
I???ve set upon a worthless stack
Of my ambitious plans
And the people that I???ve loved the most
Have turned their backs and ran
This is the good life
I???ve lost everything
I could ever want
And ever dream of
This is the good life
I found everything
I could need
Here in your arms
Loneliness has left me searching
For someone to love
Poverty has changed my view
Of what true riches are
Sorrow???s opened up my eyes
To see what real joy is
Pain has been the catalyst
To my heart???s happiness
What good would it be
If you had everything
But you wouldn???t have
The only thing you need
9 responses to “Perfect Life”
I still want ALL your notes from your current Sunday School teaching… AND for the future “Heaven” one. 🙂 Maybe you need a place on this site for Sunday School notes. 🙂 (In your “spare” time – ha ha! No pressure!)
xoxoxox
Doni~ Love this post. I have started a typepad account in hopes of recreating some of the memories I want to cherish and share with family. My inspiration…. well need I say it 🙂
One question and if I looked further into this I might just find the answer myself but do you have your journals backed up? If so how? The picture that fit with some of the posts and such, how do I make sure that doesn’t get lost?
Heidi, that’s a great idea. I vote yeah on notes too! 🙂
Forget the SS notes. LOL! I want to know how to paint those dadgum stripes on the wall. The way I “want” to do it (I want Miss Cailyn’s room in stripes – will probably pull some of the new paint off when I remove the tape. *sigh* 😉
Melissa. I love your kind of cussing. Dadgum is a personal favorite;). In our other house, my MIL used a laser to get perfect lines but this time she just marked the top and bottom with a pencil and then used painters tape. As long as the painters tape matches the pencil line at the top and bottom, it should be perfectly straight (or she is just simply amazing;). The tape comes off with no problem and doesn’t pull anything. Just let the base coat dry good first and then tape and paint your stripes. They are adorable aren’t they? I sure love them.
Thanks Doni! LOL! I didn’t know I was cussing – I just thought that was good ol’ Texas talk. You know, like “fixin’” & “reckon”. That stuff. Painters tape is how I want to do it too – but I was watching Weekend Warriors on HGTV the other day….rofl….& they used painters tape & it pulled off their first color. I wonder where the rest of my other post went….I was saying I want to do Miss Cailyn’s room in burgundy & gold. Like you really need to know that…LOL! But first, because our entire family room is GLAZED in this house , I must primer the whole thing 2 times before I can paint it & move on to other rooms. Thanks again. 🙂
Melissa, I didn’t mean REAL cussing. I meant the kind of cussin that only non cussers use so that we feel like we are saying something really powerful but we still maintain our class LOL;)!!! And….burgundy and gold sounds cool!
PS – Your mil does great work & I’m sure you are correct – I’m sure she is simply amazing. I’ve told you this 100 times…you are SO blessed with an awesome family. Sometimes the things you say (type) about your family & y’all’s relationship just leaves me sitting here thinking & in awe. Most of it I can’t even fathom. You go girl. 🙂
I am searching for the perfect scrapbooking album for my blog pages. I hope to start printing them before I get in too deep and think it will be impossible to get it done. I think I’ve found one and I’ll let you know how it turns out. I’m sure you have all yours saved to CD’s or something like that!