Wanna Fight?

The battle for contentment.

Just yesterday I read a blog post that send me spiraling. This woman's kids are AMAZING. Like, they have entire books of the Bible memorized, remember all their manners at all times, prefer organic vegetables to Goldfish, crave Mozart, and aren't even five years old yet. The mom is gorgeous and the dad is successful and they seem to have everything they could ever want.

I find that I start disliking the people that I presume are doing life better than me. I don't mean they have more than I do, I mean they just seem to live life as women, wives, and mothers better than me.

How horrible is that? I so badly want to delete that confession except I can't help but think I'm not the only one that battles this.

Can I go one step further and say that there are times something frustrating or difficult happens to these Stepford-ish women and I almost giggle about it?

Yep.......it gets that ugly in my head.

Before you start sending me all kinds of advice, let me just say that these days, and at my age, I have gotten much better at stopping the thought process before the stink of those thoughts starts oozing out of my pores.

I fight it, nip it in the bud and rehearse over and over in my head all the reasons why I'm blessed. It's amazing how impossible it is for discontentment and blessings to live harmoniously in your mind!

Yesterday helped to renew my resolve to be authentic in my everyday life with people. Those I interact with in person as well as those I communicate with only through the world wide web. I don't ever want anyone to think I am perfect or that my kids are without fault or that my world is enchanted.

I'm not implying that the women who wrote the post thinks she's perfect, but I know how easy it is to only put the shiny stuff out there for people to see while you're frantically polishing the tarnished stuff in a corner wearing stretchy pants and your six year old daughter's scrunchy.

You see.....behind every picture like this of the boy's bathroom mirror that may make you think that I am the most amazingly spiritual mom to walk the face of the earth.....

There's a picture like this that proves that even though you have consistently taught your kids for over a decade to pick up their clothes, they still aren't always going to do it.

That this tiny bathroom the boys share is often a complete disaster with toilet seat up, trash on the floor, stinky hats on the counter and toothpaste in the sink.

I must give credit where credit is due. The idea of posting scripture on the mirror is one that a woman here gave me. She told me she would write them and post them but kept every single notecard and had them bound to give to her children when they left home. I love it and it's amazing how quickly the boys notice when I change the verse. Especially now that there's lots and lots and lots of time being spent looking at that mirror.....heaven help me.

Then I make them tell it to me by heart to earn chocolate.

Bribery....it's what's for dinner.

I find that real life is what lies between great parenting ideas and....well....boys.