Perfectly perfect
Thursday, December 03, 2009
It has seemed for a long time now that my life has been spiraling out of control. Because of this, I have been doing a lot of soul searching. Deep, hard soul searching. I have had to re-evaluate a lot of preconceived ideas that I have held and have had to change the way I have been thinking.
I have only been thinking on a temporal level, not an eternal level. It's easy to get caught up in that temporal thinking. When you're in the temporal thinking mode, you're concerned about how others perceive you. And, that they will perceive you to be less than perfect. No one wants to be the topic of discussion so we pretend. We pretend about everything.
I think there is a whole lot of pretending going on. Pretending that we have the perfect lives, the perfect marriages with the perfect children all tied up with perfect little bows in our perfectly perfect houses.
Seriously. It's enough to gag the cheesiest of the cheese-balls.
All this pretending does no-one any good. All it does is make those that are facing serious trials or hardships feel alone. Sad, lonely and like they are total failures. Now, I'm not advocating the sharing of personal dirt or airing your dirty laundry at the bus stop. But I am advocating for us girls to stop pretending . . . For me to stop pretending anyway.
Marriage is hard. Heck, life is hard. Everyone will have problems and trials. Pretending that you don't have them doesn't do anyone any good. I'm not saying I want to hear all the dirty dirt you are going through, but to know that there are others who are struggling? It makes my road seem a little less lonely to travel.
You see Jefe and I have been having some marital problems, and there are times when I come home from church and find myself thinking "why? why do I even try? My children fight all the live long day. My house is filthy more than its not and my husband and I have problems. I will never be like any of those people. So why even try?"
Then I curl up in a ball and cry.
It's hard to go to church, and hear all those lessons and people sharing about their perfectly perfect lives. Because right now my life doesn't feel perfectly perfect. It appears, whether its intentional or not, that no one at church has any problems. No one is having difficulties. Everyone is just trucking down the perfectly perfect road of life, and I'm not. Therefore I suck.
I get it. I know that its satan that has pulled up a big ole easy chair and set up camp in my brain. I know that he is trying to convince me that I must suck because I'm the only one with problems. I get that he's the one saying "you're a two-bit loser on the highway to nowhere. just pack it in and give up already, will you? You are the only one with problems, so why even try?"
I'll tell you why you try.
You keep on trying because you want to teach your children that when things are rough-- and they will be rough-- they can still go to church, read their scriptures and pray. They can believe and trust in the Atonement of Jesus Christ. And in doing so, they will gain the greatest gift of all: Hope.
That's it. Hope.
Hope makes all your burdens seem lighter. When you have Hope, you feel like you can conquer anything. No longer will it seem like you are standing on the side of a giant canyon yelling, then waiting for the echo to return. Hope makes it possible to repair that canyon.
That's why you keep trying. Because every time you do, you get a bigger piece of Hope.
When I stop looking at things with a temporal view and look at them with an Eternal view I have Hope. A lot of Hope. With a lot of work I can have the perfectly perfect life, with the perfectly perfect children and the perfectly perfect marriage.
It just takes Hope.
I have only been thinking on a temporal level, not an eternal level. It's easy to get caught up in that temporal thinking. When you're in the temporal thinking mode, you're concerned about how others perceive you. And, that they will perceive you to be less than perfect. No one wants to be the topic of discussion so we pretend. We pretend about everything.
I think there is a whole lot of pretending going on. Pretending that we have the perfect lives, the perfect marriages with the perfect children all tied up with perfect little bows in our perfectly perfect houses.
Seriously. It's enough to gag the cheesiest of the cheese-balls.
All this pretending does no-one any good. All it does is make those that are facing serious trials or hardships feel alone. Sad, lonely and like they are total failures. Now, I'm not advocating the sharing of personal dirt or airing your dirty laundry at the bus stop. But I am advocating for us girls to stop pretending . . . For me to stop pretending anyway.
Marriage is hard. Heck, life is hard. Everyone will have problems and trials. Pretending that you don't have them doesn't do anyone any good. I'm not saying I want to hear all the dirty dirt you are going through, but to know that there are others who are struggling? It makes my road seem a little less lonely to travel.
You see Jefe and I have been having some marital problems, and there are times when I come home from church and find myself thinking "why? why do I even try? My children fight all the live long day. My house is filthy more than its not and my husband and I have problems. I will never be like any of those people. So why even try?"
Then I curl up in a ball and cry.
It's hard to go to church, and hear all those lessons and people sharing about their perfectly perfect lives. Because right now my life doesn't feel perfectly perfect. It appears, whether its intentional or not, that no one at church has any problems. No one is having difficulties. Everyone is just trucking down the perfectly perfect road of life, and I'm not. Therefore I suck.
I get it. I know that its satan that has pulled up a big ole easy chair and set up camp in my brain. I know that he is trying to convince me that I must suck because I'm the only one with problems. I get that he's the one saying "you're a two-bit loser on the highway to nowhere. just pack it in and give up already, will you? You are the only one with problems, so why even try?"
I'll tell you why you try.
You keep on trying because you want to teach your children that when things are rough-- and they will be rough-- they can still go to church, read their scriptures and pray. They can believe and trust in the Atonement of Jesus Christ. And in doing so, they will gain the greatest gift of all: Hope.
That's it. Hope.
Hope makes all your burdens seem lighter. When you have Hope, you feel like you can conquer anything. No longer will it seem like you are standing on the side of a giant canyon yelling, then waiting for the echo to return. Hope makes it possible to repair that canyon.
That's why you keep trying. Because every time you do, you get a bigger piece of Hope.
When I stop looking at things with a temporal view and look at them with an Eternal view I have Hope. A lot of Hope. With a lot of work I can have the perfectly perfect life, with the perfectly perfect children and the perfectly perfect marriage.
It just takes Hope.
