The time has come to confess. Actually, I figured everyone knew and that my failures weren’t being pointed out because everyone was extending grace to me. However, recently I had an encounter with someone who relentlessly pointed out many of my failures.
So let’s not keep any secrets here, I am a failure at SO MUCH!
My bathrooms are stinky and much dirtier than I would have ever imagined I’d be willing to endure. Nearly every window screen is sun-damaged and torn. The corners of every wall have chipped paint and divots. The garage is full of clutter. The tile grout throughout this house is black (it shouldn’t be). There is clutter in every single room AND closet of this house. The more I try to sort and purge, the more behind I get in equivalent or greater areas. The refrigerator water-ice dispenser is broken, as are some of the door shelves. The doo-dad display shelves high up in these lofted ceilings have never been vacuumed in the 5 years we have lived here. A door on my sideboard broke off 3 years ago. It is still broken. The toilet seat in my master bath had some coating peel off when I used bleach on it so it has been yellowed ever since and my budget is too tight to buy a new one. (TMI?) Up until last month when a friend invested his own time, energy, and money, there were gaping holes in the laundry room wall where the doorknob busted through when a kiddo used too much force carrying in the oversized boxes from Costco. There are broken bathroom drawers where a little one decided to use the open one as a ladder.
My kids’ clothes don’t match and are rarely ironed. There’s a stationary bike in the corner daily condemning me for not making the time to ride it as my mid-section gets steadily chunkier. The windshield wiper on the back of my van was chopped off by the automatic garage door. I’m sure it can be fixed, but I don’t know how or where to go — and even if I did, the thought of doing this with 4 little girls in tow makes me cringe. The van is due for an oil change and some costly maintenance. I have over $18,000 in medical bills that cropped up in less than 3 months (and that’s WITH provider forgiveness, discounts, and negotiating).
Foster care and adoption is complicated, messy, draining, and difficult. It is also life-affirming, a blessing time and time again, and an ever-present reminder of God’s redeeming power over all our brokenness. With that said, I have a couple of daughters who still suffer from the effects of trauma at the hands of their bio mom and some days all that gets done is addressing their high needs. On those frequent days (though praise God, growing less frequent), I am in no shape to execute a meal plan so we all pile into the van and hit a drive-thru restaurant in spite of a tight budget because it is better than falling on the floor in a puddle of tears at being a failure again. Toy bags and boxes piled in front of the fireplace look like clutter, but really are used daily by my little ones and I have no clue how to contain them any better than this. The laundry that is in various stages of dirty and clean.
The front yard is a disaster. When we moved in, it was beautiful. The HOA is NOT happy. I am a failure at maintaining (financially and physically) the landscape in this home.
This harsh encounter that I had doesn’t define me. I know that. But in the moments when so many of my failures are being laid bare and there isn’t a husband to stand beside me to physically comfort me or anyone to cheer me on in the moments that follow, my knees buckle.
With all of that said, this isn’t about being single or married, or about being perfect or imperfect. This isn’t a subtle way to plead for affirmations either. Furthermore, as much as I’d like this to be a pre-emptive measure in order to avoid harsh criticism in the future (and yes, secretly I wish it would), I know there will always be critical people and within their criticisms there will often be grains of truth.
What this is, as I said earlier, is a confession that I do not have it all together — and I never will. I had less failures when I was without a family. I had so much more time to clean ovens, bathrooms, and closets!
Even so, I would choose family all over again. Knowing what I know now and the harsh criticisms I’ve received, I would still choose each and every one of my children and their neediness all over again. Yes, I could put them in school so I have more time to clean, get my hair done, and go for coffee with friends. And by the way, my children do have chores and cleaning the bathrooms and floors and their rooms and doing yard work are all part of their duties. It is just that there is a gap between training and perfection. . . a very long gap. And in some of these areas, I fail to effectively train them. (I obviously have NO idea how to maintain a complicated, needy landscape.) I’ve learned to accept that.
Additionally, I know that many of my friends have the same ‘secrets’ — dirty bathrooms, moldy showers, laundry piles, and so forth. So what this is, or can be, is a vehicle to help some of you feeling the press of guilt and shame about being a failure to look to Jesus for your comfort. Without a husband to shelter me, all I have is Christ. AND THAT, my friends, is all I need.
I am a sinner. I am a failure. But because I have accepted the free gift of eternal life through the sacrificial blood of Jesus and His resurrection, I am seen by God as His daughter. BAM! End of story. So even when a brother or sister in Christ withholds grace from me, God does not. This truth doesn’t always keep my knees from buckling (especially when blindsided), but it does lift me up from there once I remember it!
Psalm 40:2 says this about our Good and Great God, “He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.”
Yah, baby!
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