The "Pinterest Mom" Failure

It is a given that in my house there are always two jars of peanut butter that are currently open. There are packages of cheese that are opened the wrong way so the self-seal zipper thing is irrelevant, and there are boxes of cereal that don’t close properly because they were ripped haphazardly instead of carefully.
There are socks stuffed into the couch cushions. Barbies in the bathtub. Shoes littering the hallway leading up to the door. If it is special to you, then you best hide it, because chances are your brothers or sisters will see this as an opportunity to zero in on your weakness and use it against you. If you are smart, then you keep your toothbrush in mom and dad’s bathroom because no one is allowed in there without permission.
Lunches are either provided by your school, or you get tuna straight from the can. Occasionally a PB and J sandwich or make your own quesadilla.

I am a “ Pinterest Mom” fail. I have too many DIY fails to claim otherwise. I have been known to burn hamburger helper. I have kids and no abs. And I’d rather do anything but laundry and housekeeping, I can organize a closet and give you tips on how to do it too, but in reality the next day it’s a mess again. In fact, because of dishes left over in the sink for a few days, we are now combating an infestation of fruit flies (which I had to check Pinterest to find out the best ways to win this battle.)
The absolute last thing I’d ever want you to think about me is that I got it all together. We are not some well-oiled machine. In fact, we consistently have the “change oil” light on the car.
My daughter went to church yesterday wearing a winter hat because her hair wasn’t brushed and rain boots because we couldn’t find any other shoes that actually matched. This wouldn’t seem too out of place, except that we live in Florida. There is never a need for winter hats here. Ever.
We are a hot mess.
The whole lot of us.
I think every single one of us cried yesterday either before church, during church or after church.
When I tell you I have no idea how I make it through every day, I am not lying. There are times I sit in awe of the words that just came out of my mouth because I know it wasn’t me who was speaking but God speaking through me. I am utterly at a loss with the whole “mom” gig.
I cannot get a handle on laundry. Cannot. It’s ridiculous.
Meal planning is beyond my capacity to plan in advance.
But I am excellent at seeing what is right in front of me. Or actually let me rephrase that. I am not excellent. God loves to show me what’s in front of my face and needs my attention while the laundry can wait, and no one is going to die if they eat another PB and J for dinner.
I’ve spent the last 9 years wrapped up in appearing to have it all together. Even though I was still a hot mess, I surely wasn’t going to let you know about it. And because I spent the majority of my time hiding from you what I didn’t want you to know, and perfecting what you did see, I missed a lot of important stuff. Like my kids.
Tears well up in my eyes when I think of all the times I didn’t see my kids. Not see them, as in lay eyes on them. I saw them every day. But see their hearts and what was going on in their brains. I missed that. I was too wrapped up in myself and what you thought about me to notice how hearts were breaking all over my home.
In the last week, I’ve seen how God has changed my head and while my hearts’ desire has remained the same. I have always wanted to be famous. The root being that I wanted to be known and adored. There I said it. Few will admit this is the cry of their heart, but when it all came down to it that’s what I really wanted. I wanted you to want to know me, and to adore me, to think I got it figured out and ask me how to show you how to do that.
Last night my son lost his crap. Screaming that he didn’t love us, flailing is body around, and doing pushups until he wasn’t going to scream at me anymore, I prayed. Lord, show me what he needs. The answer resounded in my heart. To know him and still love him.
When all the piss was out of him, we sat on the floor of his bedroom. Tears streaming down his face.
He’d screamed at me that I didn’t love him and that nobody loves him.
“Son, I love you. When they called me to ask if I wanted y—“
“THEY DIDN’T WANT ME!” He screamed at me. “MY OTHER FAMILY DIDN’T WANT ME!”
“That’s a LIE,” I screamed back. “THAT IS A LIE.” I settled myself and as tears sprang to my eyes and started down my cheeks. “They did want you. They were too sick to take care of you.” And I choked on my tears. I pulled that 7 year old boy into my lap and cradled him like and infant. “They loved you. I loved you, I have always loved you and wanted you. You are so loved. It’s hard huh?”
He sobbed into my chest and nodded.
“I know baby, I wish it wasn’t so hard, but I am going to be here with you and we will get through this, no more of these lies. You are loved and you are so wanted.”
And we sat and cried into each other for a good long while.
My audience has been all wrong.
This week I realized, I am known and adored. And not just by God, but by my family. Everything has a time. The time for me to be known and adored by my children is now. They will grow up, leave the house (God willing), get married (again, God willing) and I will become the dreaded mother-in-law. My children will love me, but they might not adore me at that time, as they are learning to leave our home and create their own families. For me to spend any amount of time trying to reach people outside of my home seems utterly ridiculous to me when my end goal is to want to be known and adored. I am so adored at home there are times I can literally hardly stand all the adoring (and touching) that comes with raising 5 children.
And my goal has changed from wanting to be known and adored by others to wanting my children to know they are not just seen, but known and adored.
I am so thankful for the calling of Mothering that God gave me. My life would be meaningless if at the end of it, I have millions of people that have come to Jesus because they knew and adored me, yet there were 5 that didn’t. I might be mediocre at the whole “Pinterest Mom” thing. Meals are certainly not my forte’ and my house will never be photo-shoot material, but I will see my children. I will work to know their hearts intimately. That is a job I can delight in, and that pays more than enough.

Pearls and Pigs Do Not Mix

While the Bible is the dearest book to me, it can also cause me utter confusion. Jesus spoke and taught in parables most of the time, and his reasons for this was so that those who have ears to hear will hear (and understand) what he is saying. This is a little unnerving for someone like me who might read something a few times, and still be like…what the heck, I don’t understand this. Then my mind goes on turbo speed through thoughts of “Am I saved?” and other ridiculous notions. The thing with the Bible is that it is the Living Word. This is a difficult concept for believers to understand, so people who don’t have a relationship with Jesus just can’t even begin to grasp this concept.
Let’s start with the fact that I am no Biblical Scholar. Just a girl who loves Jesus with everything I am. There are lessons I learned right at the beginning of my walk with Christ, but honestly in the last few years I’ve understood and learned more than ever before in my life. This is just a passage that was always confusing for me, and has now had some light shed on it.

Pearls before Swine
Matthew 7:6
“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs (swine). If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” Parentheses Mine
If you are like me, you’ve read this one, and wondered why anyone would have pearls around pigs. I mean it’s not like you would ever wear your fine jewelry out to feed the pigs some slop. And feeding dogs what is sacred seemed to be the same thing to me, I just assumed that this passage was a literal passage. Don’t feed dogs food that has been sacrificed to the Lord, and don’t give pigs pearls. Yep, ok, I think I can handle both of those tasks. Seeing as the sacrificing doesn’t happen anymore, and I don’t own a strand of pearls or a pig, I should be good with this one.
I am not one to dig into the ancient Greek text, or meanings behind the Greek words. If it’s not spelled out in layman’s terms in the NIV Bible, then I tend to gloss over it. I just figured this was an irrelevant passage to me, and skipped along my merry way.
Until I understood. It wasn’t until standing in the shower, (which as a mother of 5 elementary age children is my ONLY alone time with God) that He spoke to my heart…child that is what I meant by casting your pearls before pigs. Tears had been streaming down my face, and all of a sudden they stopped as the most gentle and tender of words were spoken to my heart: I cast my greatest pearl down to swine. Some treasured Him, and some trampled Him. You are in good company, my child.
It was Christmas morning and I checked my phone first thing in the morning as I always do. I had a few Merry Christmas texts, and one that made my blood turn cold. The husband of a woman I had shared my story with had messaged me. In his message he heaped all the condemnation and disgust he could muster through the written word onto my head, and let me know exactly what he thought of my sin. I wept that Christmas morning. Even though I knew that I was clearly forgiven by Jesus and those I had wronged, his words stung. They were lies that I had used to believe, and had had to work so desperately hard to no longer believe that there was any truth to them at all.
My heart was so hurt. I had shared with his wife the story of my redemption as a way of reaching out to a women who was struggling to see past her sin to find our Savior. She took my beautiful story, the one that God gave especially to me, a rare and beautiful treasure beyond words…or a pearl…and repeated it to her husband. It wasn’t her story to share, even with her husband. It was/is mine. The beauty of it, was lost in when a mouth other than my own speaks of my story, because the words he heard focused more on the sin and less on the redemption.
In his anger, he felt the need to message me to tell me how disgusting I am to him. And when I contacted his wife to let her know that I would not be communicating with her husband, and to please inform him that all further communication from him to myself needed to cease, I was met with coldness.
Unclean, pigs. Dogs that devour what is sacred. Delighting in the gossip that my story allowed them to share.
I was so shocked. I thought this woman and I were friends. But she’d fooled me. I’d given her my most precious of gifts, my testimony of Christ’s redemption, and she used it to hurt me.
Standing in the shower and the tears rolled down my cheeks, asking God to remind me that I am not that girl that used to dwell in a pit of destruction, but to remind me of who I am in Him, those tender words were spoken to me, and my eyes were opened to such a confusing passage of the Bible. Tears of sadness were replaced with feelings of utter joy. I understood!!!! I saw God more clearly, and I thanked Him for His unceasing tenderness with such a foolish child as myself. Oh, how He loves.
From that tender moment in the shower, I have been pondering what it is to share your testimony. God has called some of us to live out so boldly for His Kingdom, and others to live quietly for it. What am I to do?
For one, I know I am not to live in the fear of rejection. I AM in good company. Jesus was rejected and scorned, and He was faultless, to think that I will go through life and have everyone accept every part of me is foolish.
Second, I have learned to never share my testimony out of fear. More than once, I have shared intimate details of my story with people who have used it against me. I wage war within myself on how much is too much to share, and how much is too little. The imagination is a crazy thing, but sometimes the details are far crazier. I’ve come to the conclusion that there are people who know the details of my testimony because they walked through it with me. Those are safe people for me to talk details with, everyone else does not know the entire story, nor do they need to know it. Generalizations are just fine. And it is harder to cast stones of condemnations when you are uncertain of the details.
Third, no matter what we are not God. My desire to be known should be by my Creator, not of other humans. Humans no matter how good their intentions were not designed to love as completely as God does, there are some things that we just don’t want to know. I mean our curious selves wants to know them, but once we do…we are like…wait…can we just un-know that little fact about you, because someone we once held in high regard has just fallen down on her pretty little face and we don’t know what to do with that mess. So in our humanness we retreat or repeat, and both cause hurt.
So it’s a fine line, as is much of the life of a Christian. We are to walk boldly but know what we are going to say (and disclose) before the situation arises, so we are not left with a big ole’ mess when we walk out. Share, be honest and transparent…but save the nitty gritty for God.