Shaving Sheets with Jesus

I spent 10 minutes this evening shaving my bed. You know, with a safety razor.

No, I didn't loose my marbles, although the look on my husband's face may have indicated otherwise. Rather, I was shaving a rather disappointing set of sheets that I purchased last November that haven't really held up so well. They are the nicest sheets I've ever bought and yet not even four months later the bottom sheet is covered in pills. Hence the crazed Hausfrau wielding a safety razor over her bed.

Have you ever invested resources in something that you believed to be of good quality, but in the end it let you down?

The parallels between my lackluster sheets and other investments are many. I have invested time in pursuits that I felt were a path to more and better opportunities, but they were dead ends. I have invested money into countless books about how to get your baby to sleep through the night, potty train your toddler fast and effectively, get your kids to eat healthfully, stop sibling rivalry, etc., only to find that the promises never were fulfilled.

I know I'm not alone. We've all made bad judgement calls when it comes to our resources, and I have found that the most memorable lessons are the ones we learn the hard way. And yet, we are left with empty promises and pilly sheets. And then we, okay I, act crazy trying to squeeze some value out of overpriced wares.

Are we sort of like these inadequate sheets? I mean, yeah I've gotten lumpy over the years but that's not exactly what I meant. I could be something SUPER GREAT! In my wildest dreams growing up, I imagined myself becoming something of a super woman, a world-class physician of some sort of exotic specialty, a self-sacrificing humanitarian whose world-wide medical servitude knew no bounds, and a 21st-century June Cleaver all rolled into one.

Is that even possible?

Well...maybe? Regardless, I never even came close to realizing that dream, unless you count the June Cleaver bit, but I only drag the pearls and heels out once or twice a year. No, I never went to graduate school (medical or otherwise, yet anyway), and my life has taken a very divergent path from my imagined one.

Realistically, we are all going to fall short of what we ambitiously think we can do. We want to live up to our potential, but for many of us (hey, fellow overachievers!) our potential was really imagined way too high.

I can't do enough to make myself satisfied. I can't be enough to make myself satisfied. I am always, always, just not perfect.

But I don't have to be. Because I know, deep down in my heart, that I am loved by my Creator, who is also my Father God. He made me just the way I am, even the part of me that needs to sleep 8 hours a day when I could be doing super woman things. He has a plan for my life, and even though it's not a plan I would have necessarily chosen when I was a young adult, I know it's the right one. I am so happy with my life, happier than I ever was as a student. And even though I'm not perfect, he sent his son to be sacrificed as atonement for my sins.

Christians aren't perfect, sinless creatures. We can (and often do) fall prey to the very sins we abhor. We Christians are like the Super Fancy Big Money sheets that go four months and then get covered in pills. But then we have Jesus to shave us with a safety razor.

I need to work on my metaphors. Things are getting out of hand.

Busted, Broken, and Bright

I have a lamp. Actually I have several lamps, but there is one lamp in particular that has seen better days in its short life. Here it is:

This is a lamp, my friends, that does not know the meaning of 'defeat.' Mainly due to the fact that it is a lamp. Even so, this lamp has the courage to keep lighting up my living room, despite its broken neck and busted shade, battle wounds from one of my kids knocking it over while surreptitiously hanging out behind the corner table. It is lamp that illuminates the floor behind the table where I grumpily retrieve half of a box of tissues that my toddler Stitch has thrown down there like some kind of Benevolent Tissue God of the dust bunnies. A lamp that highlights my children's artwork, which can only be described as 'not unpleasant' at best and 'stuff of my nightmares' at worst. Granted, it's a large range, but as an example, you can make out the eyeless one-horned snowman that my son made in pre-kindergarten. Creepy.

But I digress. This lamp, it serves us, even when it could probably be described as a fire hazard. In a more self-respecting household, junk. But not here. We won't forsake it, when it tries so hard to put a little light into our lives. 

Sometimes as a mom I feel kind of like this lamp. I feel totally busted, usually because my kids have tripped me up, but the list also includes forgetting to do something important, being neglectful of my spiritual walk with God, and an unhelpful yet irresistible urge to procrastinate, which often leads to self-loathing over my messy house and endless list of to-do's. And when all of these things strike on the same day, my family still needs me, even when this Lampstand would rather hide herself under a bowl where it is nice and private and nobody can poke their tiny fingers into her fluffy belly. (Seriously, is it just my toddler? Or do all of them have a fluffy mommy tummy touching compulsion?)

And just like this lamp, I know that someday I will be made whole. My brokenness will be healed by the one who loves me so much that He bought me with the blood of his own son. Just the thought makes my light shine a little brighter.

I will, however, be pretty surprised if I arrive to be glorified and Jesus pulls out some kind of Holy Epoxy Glue. Will not have seen that coming.