Reality Check

I think reading blogs can be a great place to get ideas, encouragement, inspiration and share tips. They have the potential to promote a sense of online community amongst like minded people. They can also be a place that makes us feel guilty about all the things we're not doing, places we'll never visit, ideas we should have come up with ourselves, projects we'll never follow through with ..... anyone with me on this? 


It's easy to post the good stuff. If I only write when I'm in a good mood on a good day, that's what I'll write about. I have yet to reveal the truth behind the havoc of Canadian Thanksgiving 2010 that found me weeping in the backyard as our guests arrived. I'm still scarred by the memories myself - I'll share the details someday:) Blogging can be like the annual Christmas letter - makes me think of the Everyone loves Raymond  episode when they sat around reading the Christmas letters and made fun of all the bragging and seemingly perfect lives of their relatives they knew were overinflated. So in an effort to "keep it real", here's my reality check. 

Sort of embarrassed by this picture - this is an actual action shot. I don't recall who took it, what was going on at the time, details, etc. I only know that the look on my face is not patience. Clearly, we're disagreeing and I am frustrated. It happens - EVERY DAY! 


I don't iron - we are frequently wrinkled. Don't look too close.
I don't sew
I don't knit with needles - last time I tried, I took up a bad habit of swearing and throwing knitting needles, narrowing missing my husband. 
I don't do things perfectly. Nothing would ever get done. I recently pulled out my kitchen appliances after 5 years and cleaned behind them. Looks great  now - it'll have to do for another 5 years. 
I don't keep up with scrapbooking anymore - I'm 2 years behind on my Christmas album and it'll be 3 years behind next month. 
I don't do anything after 8pm. I have no energy left. No will. No short term or long term memory. I can barely hold a conversation.
I don't handle lack of sleep or hunger well. It's really bad. My blood sugar plummets and I can't think straight. Wayne wonders who he married. My kids know to offer me a snack.
I don't make sure my kids can speak French and neither of them can ice skate proficiently. This is a BIG deal in Canada, specifically where we live. 
I don't enjoy playing with my kids. Doesn't that sound awful?!! I'm not a game board player, I don't like kid's crafts, I don't play with matchbox cars. I don't play sports.  I have been known to do up some doll's hair and rearrange the doll house furniture, but my intentions are not play. 
I don't grow things - plants are a struggle for me to keep alive. All indoor plants are fake. I hose off the dust every other year. I killed a cactus in high school. Will had a cactus once I was threatened by (Wayne had bought it for him) and in a fit of anger one day I threw it into the street. bad scene  BTW - if you're at our church you may notice a cactus in the church office. This is because my family doesn't dare have it in our house. 
I don't drive a stick shift. This angers me even to think about because I've tried. It makes me feel stupid, especially when my husband bought a car 9 years ago that reminds me every day that I can't drive it. 
I don't do "normal" (whatever normal is) pastor's wife things like teach Sunday school and play the organ. 
Well, I could go on but my reality check is starting to depress me. I think I'll go read some of the Christmas letters we've sent out in the past to remind myself how great our life is (haha).
The real reality is that I can do nothing - by myself. I should be reading God's Word instead of my Christmas letters. The Holy Spirit builds me up daily through his means of grace (the gospel in Word and sacrament), grants me patience, gives me strength and  forgives me when (not if) I fail. He made each of us uniquely  different with varying strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes and opportunities. I try to remind myself of this when I'm feeling guilty about not allowing frogs in the house to observe their life cycle, covering my table with a map so while we're eating we can discuss current events, volunteering as a family in a foreign country or baking all my bread from scratch - all wonderful ideas that some wonderful women I personally know do in their lives. I don't, I just do some other things. Guilt can eat away at us and fill our lives with regret. It's not about what we do or don't do or what someone else has or hasn't done, but do it all to the glory of God!