Perfect Post Pressure

This is my one hundredth post. Apparently, I've had a lot to say or share since February!

I've been rolling thoughts around in my haphazardly organized mind, and I think I've had about 20 different perspectives to write from this time around. I put pressure on myself to make this one really spectacular, with the perfect combination of humor, life changing anecdotes, tales of my kids' antics, and spiritual insight. However, that's not where I am right now. Recently, I've been seeing the beauty of imperfection. That messed up part of us that just can't get it together. For me, that's where God comes in and makes himself so real.

When God steps into my faults and messiness, I become so aware of the beauty of the imperfection. It becomes a beautiful thing to not be just right, because God makes up the difference. As I strive to become "lesser" (John 3:30), then the imperfections become lesser too, and the perfection of Jesus in me becomes greater, therefore making me more complete. I picture it in my head as a pie chart, with two colors, one for the ugly messed up part of me, and one for the beauty of Christ. In every circumstance, how I respond, how I think, how I speak and act, how I treat people, my prayer is that the beauty of Christ take up most of the pie, and eventually the ugliness of my faults is a just a tiny sliver.

I have been working on the appearance of the blog, as you can tell. I love the grid with the most precious faces I've ever seen. But I can't stand the font. Blogger doesn't give a lot of options here, I have to learn how to do something different there. But the whole point of the upgrade is this: I realized that although "Flirting with Chaos" is appropriate for our life with the kids we have, it has a negative connotation. It was intended to be humorous, but I would never want anyone to mistake my attitude toward my family as being stressed, or frustrated, or less than completely happy.

Michael and I have talked a lot about making the most out of life. To quote the musical we did in junior high, we want to "Live It to the Max!" We only get one shot at life here on earth. I want mine to be lived in the best possible way. There are so many ways to look at this idea. I want to be adventurous. I want to be creative. I want to be passionate. I want to be silly. I want to laugh really hard. I want to be more spontaneous (which is hard for me, but I'm working on it.) I want to love people. This is probably where I am the most right now. I want to treat others in a way that there is no question that Jesus lives in me. I won't get it right sometimes, or even most of the time. But that's where the Lord comes in and fills in the rough spots of my imperfection and my identity in Christ becomes more important than even my relationships with people.

I think God wants us to embrace the life He has for us. He created so many wonderful things. He made wonderful people, everyone different and special. He made music. I wouldn't want to live in a world without music. He made everything to worship him. I desire with all of my heart to worship him without inhibitions. To worship him through my life, my words, my actions.

This past Sunday night, my sweet friend Katie Magee was baptized. She is a precious girl who I love to be around. After church, someone brought me her camera and said she left it in the baptistry and could I take it to her. The camera is pink, and Molly has been chomping at the bit to use it. We have been talking a lot about Katie's baptism, and what it means to come to know Christ and be baptized to show everyone that Jesus is in your heart. So yesterday, Molly comes to me and says, "Mama, how can we take Katie her camera if she's in heaven?" I told her Katie was at home, not in heaven. She said, "but she got baptized, and now she's in heaven, right?" That started a wonderful conversation about the symbolism of baptism and what it means to have Jesus in your heart. I told Molly that I asked Jesus in my heart when I was 6, but I'm still here. I told her when I die, a long time from now, I would go to heaven. Molly teared up and told me, "I'm gonna miss you when you die, mama!" After a good cry and a long hug, I explained that I wasn't going anywhere today. That hopefully I would be here with her until I am really old. Then I explained that if Jesus is in her heart, she'll see me when she gets there too. This made my sweet girl really happy. We talked about singing with Jesus forever.

Then she asked me where people go when they don't know Jesus. Now, I've known these questions were coming, but Molly is three. I was a little caught off guard. But I was honest, and I told her about hell. I told her hell was a sad place, because there was nothing good there. That it was a place completely without God or his love. This made her get really quiet for a minute, then she said, "tell me more about hell, mama". I explained that we have a choice, to know Jesus and ask him to forgive us of our sin and come live in our hearts and be in charge of our life, or not. I told her that in my life, following Jesus meant joy, peace, comfort, excitement. I told her that people without Jesus didn't have those things all the time, like we do.

Molly's conversation was an incredibly humbling experience for me. She's three, and now she knows that life with Jesus is better than life without him. I know she'll have hard times. We all do. But to have a chance to maybe instill a little bit of the faith that gets me through the valleys makes me feel so honored and proud. I'm so glad God made that little girl. I pray she will see that the faith and God given strength that gets me through stuff is available to her all the time.

For a 100th post, this was a doozy, huh? Thanks for reading if you made it this far. I'm thankful for the chance to get to express what God is doing in my heart. I pray that He's being awesome in yours. Even as I wind this up, there are so many wonderful things going on in my life that I could write about. But this post is long, and those things are all outside circumstances. So, I'll stick with the heart stuff, and say good night.