{faith} you're already enough
She spends fifteen minutes on her makeup, adding a bit of eyeshadow here, curling those eyelashes one more time. Her hair just isn’t laying right, as she checks the back for the fifth time with her handheld mirror. Maybe a turtleneck would work better with her hair down, or maybe she should just wear it up and out of the way today. She frets. She frowns. She feels paralyzed in this place of not-pretty-enough.
Across town, another woman is cleaning. Baseboards, windowsills, walls, doorknobs. She sees some spots on the window that she must have missed the day before. She sighs and reaches for the Windex and paper towels. Her infant squawks from across the house, signaling that nap time is over. There is still dust. There are still spots. There are crumbs on the floor. She wants to love and be loved, but there is an ache inside, a yearning that she feels will only be satisfied by perfectly clean.
Her kids are tired, hungry, and generally discontented. One yells at the other from across the park, something about “you better stop that or else”. The other yells back, “oh yeah” and the verbal battle is on. She tries to intervene, but all the other park parents get to see her middle schoolers flailing at each other and throwing not-so-nice names back and forth. She wants to crawl into a hole and escape from this embarrassing failure, what she thinks looks to everyone else like worst mom ever.
We all have high expectations for ourselves. You bet. Something or someone, somewhere along our life’s journey preached a hard-hitter about doing it right, being the best, looking good, and impressing everyone. It’s the easy way to teach obedience, right? “Now you better do this right, to make mama happy!” We do things right in order to earn love.
Performance runs deep.
But I have a question for you today. Actually, Holly Gerth asks the question in her book and I just stole it from her {with proper attribution, of course}. Here it is:
Across town, another woman is cleaning. Baseboards, windowsills, walls, doorknobs. She sees some spots on the window that she must have missed the day before. She sighs and reaches for the Windex and paper towels. Her infant squawks from across the house, signaling that nap time is over. There is still dust. There are still spots. There are crumbs on the floor. She wants to love and be loved, but there is an ache inside, a yearning that she feels will only be satisfied by perfectly clean.
Her kids are tired, hungry, and generally discontented. One yells at the other from across the park, something about “you better stop that or else”. The other yells back, “oh yeah” and the verbal battle is on. She tries to intervene, but all the other park parents get to see her middle schoolers flailing at each other and throwing not-so-nice names back and forth. She wants to crawl into a hole and escape from this embarrassing failure, what she thinks looks to everyone else like worst mom ever.
We all have high expectations for ourselves. You bet. Something or someone, somewhere along our life’s journey preached a hard-hitter about doing it right, being the best, looking good, and impressing everyone. It’s the easy way to teach obedience, right? “Now you better do this right, to make mama happy!” We do things right in order to earn love.Performance runs deep.
But I have a question for you today. Actually, Holly Gerth asks the question in her book and I just stole it from her {with proper attribution, of course}. Here it is:
"If you knew you would be completely loved and accepted no matter what, then what items would be crossed off your to-do list for good?"You're Already Amazing, by Holley Gerth
Come join me over at 5 Minutes for Faith to read the rest...