Not Just a Sunday Thing - Week 4

How is your daily time with Jesus going?  Like I said last week, I am definitely doing much better setting aside time to begin my day in peaceful quiet, prayer time.  It really does make a difference. But, like I also said last week, I am struggling to make it an organic part of my day and not just one more thing to successfully check off my "To Do" list.  The struggle is real.  Ha!

My Sunday School class just started the Jen Hatmaker book, For The Love.   My copy of the book hasn't gotten here yet, so I hadn't read the parts we discussed.  I just  joined in on the discussion from the other ladies in class that had already read it.  So, forgive me here for not being able to actually quote from the book.  But, my favorite part of our discussion today was when she talked about - unicorns.  Yes, I said, unicorns.

We were talking about balance.  Specifically balancing all the stuff in our lives.  She painted a picture of your life being a balance beam.  The more stuff you have piled on the beam, the harder it is to do your stuff......your gymnastic tricks.

Hey!  I found some Jen Hatmaker quotes on the GoodReads site!

"Balance. It’s like a unicorn; we’ve heard about it, everyone talks about it and makes airbrushed T-shirts celebrating it, it seems super rad, but we haven’t actually seen one."  

Hahahahahaha!

I totally got that.  I have talked before about the fact that so many people say things to me like, "I don't know how you do it all." Or...."You must have more patience that I do."  And, how it makes me laugh.

Balancing it all is just a magical figment of our imaginations.  A fictional being.

I can't do it all. (Neither can you.)

I certainly can't do it all at the same time.

I feel like today I can be a great wife and give myself heart, soul, and body to Rainman.

But, if I do that, I can't get a meal on the table.

If I get a good meal on the table, then, my house will be a mess.

If I have a clean house, then I am sure if I am not being a kind, loving mother.

I am starting to sound like If You Give A Mouse a Cookie.  Aren't I?

But, that is totally how it is in real life, for me.

Yes, I can multi-task, like a beast.

But, I cannot balance all the pieces of my life....well, I guess, more accurately, I can't balance the roles I play in life at the same time.

There have got to be seasons in your life where you have permission to focus more on certain areas. Where you allowed the luxury to focus on specific areas of your life.  Sort of like how we use winter for.....



You know what I mean, right?  The actual literal season of winter is used to take the focus off of our outward appearance and focus more on....say...making yummy food for our family.

I am not saying that if I have to shave my legs, my family doesn't eat.  But, I am saying when I can let go of some of those things (push them off my balance beam), I have time for other things.

Above all, we need to remember that the illusion of people really having it together and balancing it all are really just magical creatures we can call unicorns.  A nice fantasy, but NOT real.

My class this morning, talked about how bad social media can sometimes be.  People taking pictures of their kids after school snacks that are all Pinterest worthy.  People posting pictures of their happy, smiling family with no sullen teenagers in sight, or showing no signs of mom and dad snapping at each other right before the camera went - click.

Again, lots and lots of this stuff is just a magical, fictional creature.  Not real.

I love those memes that poke fun at the Pinterest snacks.  The "you nailed it" ones where they show the Pinterest inspiration photo and then the real life picture of someone recreating it.






It shows us a literal picture of "expectation" versus "reality".

We need to live in reality.

Not that we need to lower our expectations for our lives and be a pessimist.  But, we need to embrace the reality and not beat ourselves up over those things not living up to our expectations.  Because those things are just unicorns too.

And, I bet that funky looking train cake and the little evil, squashed face bunnies both tasted pretty good - despite how they looked.

This week I am challenging you to figure out what things in your life are really just  - unicorns.  What magical, fictional creature are you trying to make a reality.  Can you let go of it?  Does it make you feel like a failure because you can't achieve it?

Anybody want to share with the class what their personal unicorn looks like?