I get this question a lot, “How do you balance it all?” Simple answer? I don’t. Blogs can be funny things. You can’t look behind them and see the piles of dishes in the sink. You can’t hear the impatience that leaks from wearied parents. You can’t see the half done projects strewn about the house. You see things that are put together and pretty I pray (warm smile) and be glad friend you don’t really want to see my dirty laundry. You have plenty of your own, right?

In all seriousness though in the age of pinterest, instagram, facebook, and the like it can seem like everyone is living these well-balanced, perfectly put together fairy tale lives and evidently we missed the boat. We’re all drowning trying to get on it. The thing is the boat is a figment of our imagination. And NO ONE…did you hear me sister? NO ONE is hitting it out of the park all the time, unless of course you are my almost 5 year old son, then you might (bragging rights of a proud tee ball momma). Now, that friend of yours might legitimately be more organized than you and have a better cleaning schedule. She’s not trying to make you look bad, I promise, because she is wondering how your every outfit is so put together? Why does it always look like you went on a shopping spree just recently? Yeah, she cannot figure that one out.

You see, God stamped His image on us. He imparted to us something of His nature to us. We reflect His beauty, His gentleness, His grace, His warm love as women but all in vastly different ways. Just as earth’s landscape soars to mountain peaks wet with fresh snow and falls low into deep valleys of lush green and cool streams, so we as women ebb and flow, one with this spiritual gifting & natural ability and the other with something different. The thing is in the age of the internet we’re all left to kind of assume that you’re supposed to do and be EVERYTHING. But none of us are God, so you can’t do and be a whole lot of things, and that is ok. 

The only thing you really have to figure out in the Lord this side of heaven is how to do the will of God day to day…how to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, because in doing that you will fulfill the purpose for which God created you. We are set here to reflect Him.

The penetrating brilliance of His Light intended to illumine us and draw others to the Light Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ.

We were meant to be secure women. We really were. Not insecure women trying to figure out how to be their friend. Are you with me (sincere smile)? So many of us are lost in comparison, steeped in competition, masking pride with prettiness that fades and for women professing godliness this ought not be so. You don’t have to figure out how to be everything. Nothing in life HAS to look like a pinterest picture, but if someone posts a picture like that, we also don’t have to assume that they did so from the insincerity of their hearts and to make us feel bad. Most people are far too preoccupied with themselves to spend any considerable time meditating on us (I’m laughing but am I lying?). Sin is the silliest saddest thing of all; we’re trying to please men and too many times have left God out of the details of our lives…we sort of forget that our main aim is to please Him. For He alone is the judge of all hearts and the One who knows deep all the intentions of our hearts. Let’s return our gaze to His loving eyes and radiate the beauty spewing from Him.

{We could be secure women.}

Yeah, even in the age of airbrushed everything. Even in a time when Instagram reels tempt us toward comparison. We could refuse. Our Father is always giving us a way out. Let us take it.

And let us learn to really rejoice with those who rejoice, because I sort of think it’s easier for us to mourn with those who mourn, but to share in someone’s happiness requires our humility.

We could shine with an other-worldly splendor if we learned to live this way. And we would follow our Lord Jesus, down the one road that would lead us into freedom.