Let's Stop Pretending.....

"Let's stop pretending." These words have come to me over the last few weeks as I've struggled to deal with life in general, and more so as a Christian wife and Mom to four young children. I kept asking myself: "Am I the ONLY woman out there struggling?" If my faith wasn't so strong, I'd honestly believe in the strangeness I've encountered over the last few weeks. But I do believe in the divine appointments in God's tapestry and how He works it all together.

So let me start with this:

Women, ladies, girlfriends, Moms, Grandmothers, all of us collectively have to stop competing amongst each other that we have the perfect marriages, perfect children, and perfect lives, because if we are to be honest with each other, WE DON'T. Yet we are afraid to be honest, afraid to be transparent of the sometimes daily struggles we encounter each and every day. And some of us, me included, were drowning in the aloneness of failure. "I can't do this" I chimed every day as I awoke to face yet another day. "I can't do this.....I don't want to do this.......why is this so hard? Am I the ONLY person that feels like this? Where is the JOY in motherhood? Is that too, just a fantasy?" I'd call out to God with stunted prayers: "God, here the cries of my heart" because honestly, I couldn't manage more than that. Yet God heard me...and sent me women, unbeknownst to some of them, to share with me some of the same struggles they too were struggling with.

One women even told me: "I can't believe I"m admitting this to you!" almost shocked that the words really came from her mouth. And others soon followed and I realized God was answering my prayers, He did hear the cries from the bellows of my heart. The desperate cries of help, not only for me, but for my family as well.

And finally, a visit from dear, sweet, sweet Becca on Monday night. A sweet and needed balm to my soul. I almost picked up the phone more than once to call her and tell her not to come. I confided that to her as she was loading up her three beautiful children in her car to head home. Yet God knew I needed her, but more importantly, I had to stop pretending that my life, my family were the "perfect family." But more importantly, that I am not the perfect wife, mother and Christian woman. That my feelings about being a wife and a mom are not always flattering. It's been a very humbling experience in letting go....a humbling experience in accepting that we, meaning women, cannot do this on our own. It truly takes a village to raise our children.

We need to STOP PRETENDING......and start being honest with ourselves,

and start asking for help,

for relief,

for a shoulder to cry on,

to laugh with,

to admit that we have to rely on God, and not ourselves to raise our children to be God-fearing adults in the crazy and chaotic world we now live in.