The Most Difficult Word To Say


No.

That's it, just two little letters. Yet for all my loquaciousness, I choke on it.

Harder still is to simply not speak. Where there is something wrong, I am compelled to fix it- usually by feeding someone, and often that someone is ME.

I have always been a 'go hard or go home' kind of person. I simply don't know any other way. Doing something less than perfect leaves me feeling defeated and depleted, if not ashamed.

Motherhood, homemaking, volunteering - none of them are something I take lightly. If I'm volunteering, I will expend great amounts of energy I don't actually have to make it to every single rehearsal. If I'm mothering, I will cook ALL of the healthy food, obsess about my children's behavioural challenges, read ALL of the parenting books, blogs, articles- and spend a good deal of time feeling rubbish about my own lacklustre performance. If I'm homemaking, I will work myself into exhaustion, then caffeinate and work some more. Because that's what everyone does, right? I don't want to disappoint anyone by being less than I should.

But I'm through with perfect. I've had enough of the guilt, the shame, the utter exhaustion, the shingles, the aches, pains, and feelings of failure. This is not what life should be.

Yes, Jesus says there will be trials- but I'm certain joy is mixed in there too somehow. I know that true joy, perfect peace - won't be found in this life, but that doesn't mean there  is NO joy.

I'm not striving for perfect anymore.

I'm working for JOY.

XO, Sarah



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