“We loath the plight of our cluttered house and hope that once the kids are in school/grown/out of the house, we can do something worthwhile.”
Friends of Littles, stay-at-home wives, do you struggle with self-worth? Do you scroll through the perfectly photoshopped feeds on Instagram and Facebook and compare yourselves to the elusive, unrealistic images posted there?
I do.
It’s an easy pit to fall into when everyone, everywhere, has a phone in hand and hashtags at their fingertips. It’s a constant reminder that our life is on display. And when we choose to hide our life from spectators, it’s usually because we find it lacking. Messy. Unworthy to be judged by the publics’ ever fault-finding eye.
We long to capture what others seem to have. We loath the plight of our cluttered house and hope that once the kids are in school/grown/out of the house, we can do something worthwhile.
Friends, we have it backwards! We are believing a lie. Today I’d like to encourage you with a reality-check of what GOD says about you as a wife and a mother.
A friend recently sent this blog post to me, and it is just too good to keep to myself. Though my kids are out of the house and I have more ‘me’ time than ever, I find I STILL fall into the comparison and ‘I’m a failure’ trap, because the message from the world is relentless and defeating.
Click hear to read this wonderful article from Greg Morse, with Desiring God, which refreshed and encouraged me. I hope it will do the same for you.
Before I close, I want to share a little story with you.
In my book, The Tethered World, I have an autistic character (Brock) who is loosely based on my son. Near the beginning of the book, Brock smiles at his sister Sadie, the main character. Sadie says that a smile from Brock is “like a hug and a ‘good morning, sis'”.
The day I read the aforementioned blog from my friend, I received a text from my son who lives in a group home. He has a phone, but is not terribly communicative. I might hear a quick question from him once a month or so. I think he’s texted my husband about three times in the two years he’s since he moved out (though we see him once or twice a month). He’s a pretty quiet guy with very little emotion, let alone conversation skills.
But last week I got this text from him and proceeded to melt just a little. My heart flushed with warm pride and satisfaction upon reading these three words.
Though raising him was hard: So. Hard. It was worth all the sacrifices made. I’d homeschool my girls and do years of therapy with him and continue to feel like I was bashing my head against a wall all over again for a text like this.
What little things are big blessings in YOUR life?
Enjoy the blog and be encouraged to bloom where you are planted today!
Aw!! *melts* I remember calling my mom to squeal when my brother said that to me, about a year or so after his meds began to really make a difference.
My brother likes to show his affection through food (my family jokes that food’s his love language) and, for some reason, I’m his favorite person.
So I’m always getting calls from him asking if I’d like to come over and take some of whatever menu item is his choice of the month. (He goes through phases where he loves eating a specific item before moving on to something else.) Or he sends it to work with my mom for her to pass on to me, since we work together. His leftover pizza (for weeks!), a protein-based chocolate milk, slices from a tiramisu cake from the Fresh Market that he wanted me to like (I didn’t but it takes him a while to stop trying to convince you), sparkling lemonade, caramel corn, etc. The past 3 weeks it’s been bananas – he calls me to tell me it was yellow that morning but just developed a slight spot so now he won’t eat it, do I want to have it? About twice a week he calls – I’ve got bananas in the freezer to make banana bread out of thanks to him. lol
It’s a little overwhelming sometimes but super sweet too.
Oh, I think that’s the sweetest story ever! How terribly thoughtful and loving of him. At least he DOES move on to new things, too. Could be that he has a thing for something awful indefinitely 😂 Thanks for sharing 🥰