I think it is so easy to believe that everyone has it figured out, but us.

Even as a 47-year-old mom with a rewarding teaching career behind me, it is not an infrequent thing for me to find myself searching for what it is that God wants for me to do with my life now.

I believe that moms today are under a ton of pressure because we see the social media posts of friends and peers, portraying a seemingly perfect life.

I once heard of a mom getting ready to take a picture for a post and she pushed everything to the other side of her kitchen island before using the perfectly neat portion of the room for the photo shoot.

Life outside that snapshot is Real Life.

If you could see my desk right now, it is a combination of a 2/3 burnt (yet lit) candle, a clipping from a plant that I’m trying to restart in water, 9 books (I counted), a days-past-gone flower arrangement that I can’t quite part with yet, my laptop, an eos lip balm, and a table that I’ve harvested to use as my desk because it was my Oma’s, not because it really looks like a desk. Would I submit a picture of all this?

Nope.

Except that after I typed that I realized that I must.

If I’m going to search and give up, keep and throw away, then to me that means that I am going to search for the “real” and commit to giving up the imaginary and fake.

If I am going to keep something, it needs to be the better parts of me…and that means the more vulnerable parts…where I push all the mess of the kitchen island into the full frame of the picture.

The women that I have respected most over the years haven’t been the ones that seem to have it all together…they are the ones who share, with a great deal of self-deprecating humor, what they are working on in themselves and their lives in order to draw closer to God and to their loved ones.

So, in that spirit, here’s my true snapshot.

In the mess of that table is searching, seeking and laying it all down.

I’m searching for God’s direction in how to be the best wife, mom and friend that I can be.

I’m giving up thinking I already know the answer.

I’m keeping the tools He’s blessed me with to try to discover it.

And I’m throwing away the belief that it has to be pretty as I figure it out.

Join me?

? Holly

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