A Look Back....

Getting ready for village I was thinking that I can, that our family can, look so good when one is looking in from the outside. We have chairs, a table, fruit, 2 frittatas, homemade banana pudding, activities for the kids and other assorted items that we cart to village. Our kids are looking cute, we most likely will get there early and we can paint a pretty picture for all those at village without kids, without spouses who most likely don't know what does on behind the scenes. Even when there is chaos at village it seems to be a happy chaos most of the time. However, in the last 10 minutes Francesca has crawled on my lap and we wrestled over the keyboard, she ran into the kitchen and took a chunk out of the lovely tomato, basil and feta frittata I made, the other two are zoned out in front of the TV after Joe and I admitted that we are too tired to play for another 45 minutes before having to round up the kids and be on for village. So today I was reminded of this e-mail I sent out to friends after Easter 2010 and thought it was worthy of a repeat.

Just today I was thinking about all the feelings of inadequacy I have been having lately. If the house is clean I feel like I haven't spent enough time with the kids. If the kids and I have been playing then the house is a mess and dinner is hurriedly made. If there is fresh baked bread and a great dinner on the table then I wasn't taking the walk with the kids that I wanted to. Everything comes with a price and there is a balance to life - you can't do EVERYTHING perfectly. And while, yes, we all want to just play and be in the moment with our kids the family must eat and sleep in clean beds and have clean clothes to wear and well, they have to learn to help with this stuff and play on their own.

But I was thinking of how things may LOOK perfect in our lives sometimes. We had a bunch of people over last night for Easter dinner and it was wonderful and I am so glad that we did it. But man, it looked like I had everything together. There was the fresh baked bread, the homemade dishes, decorated cake, easter crafts on the wall, bible verses out and memorized by Fia, kids behaving well and when they didn't they were promptly moved to timeout (Nico........). Francesca went to bed and stayed sleeping at 7:00, the kids got their jammies on without screaming and yelling about going back outside. They ate all their fruit and veggies without comment. Wow, what a great family we are, huh? I guess they missed it when Joe got ticked off at me because I wouldn't take 2 seconds to hug and kiss him while I was making those delicious mashed potatoes. I guess they weren't there when I was freaking out on my family Saturday morning because I wanted to try to get everything prepped for Sunday dinner that morning so I wouldn't have to do much on Sunday and the house was a mess and I was thinking I took on too much. I guess they didn't see Sunday morning when the family went to sunrise service (usually 45 minutes, right?) and it was AN HOUR AND A HALF!!!!!! and Nico and Sofia were quickly turning into these beasts in a totally silent service that we were not prepared for and I was thinking just smile, just smile because today Jesus is alive and that is the important thing!

My life, our family is not perfect......as much as I strive for it to be! But it's ok. I read this passage today:

"And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. " Romans 8:38 (NLT)

and usually when I read it I think oh how nice for those other people that don't know God that they can read this and think that God is so present in THIER life (yes, that is how self-centered I am! this is for OTHER people!) But today I read that and I just was amazed at it's message to ME! All my worries about today - all those thoughts of inadequacy, all those worries about the house, about dinner, about my weight, about spending time with the ever increasing brood, about not honoring my husband the way I should be doing - all that STUFF isn't keeping God's love from touching my life. Even when I am not thinking of Him because of all the crap in my life He is constantly with me. I just rested in that today. The dishes are piled up, the laundry is really very overwhelming, I am not dressed and the kids are in play by yourself time for an extra ten minutes but it's ok - life goes on and I have no one to look PERFECT for today!