>YES! I sit SQUARELY in the seat of a perfect life.
The children fight, I have late readers, a tired husband, a checkbook in the red, a dirty house, a very sick mother, a past with a badly dressed reputation, some old addictions, bad choices, angry voices, too much therapy, a once bad marriage (sometimes tough marriage)….but life is perfect, my life is perfect. I am embracing all of that. It makes me who I am. There is no sarcasm in my saying my life is perfect….one would understand if you really knew what it could of been.
It could have been lonely, illegitimate children, still a woman of bad reputation, drug use, depression….constant loss.
Everyday, however I gain….hope perspective, love, encouragement.
Everyday I see grace, God’s and other’s for me, a sweet husband, growing children that I am learning to parent and love better, my mom is a surprise joy to every morning in my home, our home, it is a perfect life.
I do not stand ashamed at this or wondering if it is okay to say it, but instead thankful…
God has and will redeemed the years the locust stole….He has, He is, He will continue to.
This is our story…..good, bad, in different, it is my perfect story.
I am Cinderella, in a messy house, with lots of messy kids, with a life that doesn’t always line up to the story books, but it is my story, and I LOVE it and embrace it and wouldn’t trade it.
Find perfection in your life today, you are loved with an Everlasting PERFECT love.
It doesn’t matter if your house or husband or wife or children or car or checkbook or, or, or, or…..anything feels perfect…WE ALL are loved with a PERFECT love and that is where I find identity, hope and breath, every breath that I think I can’t take next can be taken in that thought.
Stand in that Christmas Light, that Perfect Life, HIS Perfect Love in YOU, ME….your messy family and Stand don’t Sit in that
Christmas LIFE and Light.

>I have had shaking down of my spirit in the last few days, this happens every so often and at the end I am as tired as if I ran a marathon (I think, I will never run a marathon). In my life it has become important to recognize when I am not expected to do something, when it is okay to just walk away, even if I was wrong. I have been wrong and I have been wronged, I have sought forgiveness where I could and been straightforward with myself and my Lord and I will protect the very spirit with in me. So many times it isn’t people but that fear and insecurity deep within us that we fight and argue and wrestle with. For today I will not wrestle, I will rest. I will rest in some truths…..
I am not who I was,
My husband loves me more than ever,
Our children are a blessing,
Our home is a gift,
My mom is a pleasant surprise to my days,
I really do have a dang near perfect family (and I don’t have to feel guilty about that),
I will see my grandparents in 24 hours and this evening my aunts and cousins will wrap their arms around me and say “welcome home”.
My pain is not unbearable and I am loved by the great I AM.
As I type those truths the voices in my head and the voices on the phone and the voices on the tv and the voices from my past and the voices from my present..and, and, and…. melt away.
These are my truths, my truths of today and yesterday is no more, I don’t need to explain or live in it, I have forgiven and been forgiven, but I do not have to say yes to the pain runnning over me again in a reminder of all the ways I have failed and done wrong.
Today I am doing right….
Loving the man of my dreams,
Feeding truth and rice with sugar to the children God has given me,
Seeking peace with my mother,
Seeing God out of that Rubbermaid Box I had Him in (you know the clear kind you can see through, but the top pinches your hands when you try to pry it open),
Believing the truths not the lies about myself.

I feel the tears in my throat and at the same time my strong spirit rise up in me and say “On this day I will be okay.”
I will not wrestle with lies, I will rest in truth.