Currently all I want to do all day long is eat green grapes and lay on the couch reading a good book or watching an entertaining movie/show. But when you have a toddler, you don’t have the real luxury to lay about. You can try your darndest but that toddler will make it incredibly difficult.
When I was pregnant with Max, I remember my last month well. I truly had no real responsibilities. We were living at my mom’s and Kyle worked long hours most days. I would occasionally run carpool or to the store but I mostly watched a lot of HGTV, got incredibly good at minesweeper, and plowed through a few books. It was self-indulgent and looking back on it all, pretty selfish.
I was reading in the Old Testament this morning, Genesis 13, where Lot and Abraham are having issues living so close together. So Abraham being the peacemaker he is, says in general, “Lot, we are going to have to split up here and I am going to let you take first pick on the land.” So Lot looks around and sees the plains of Jordan and they look perfect. They are well watered and seem even like the Garden of Eden. I can imagine him thinking, Alright…I am set here. I will be comfortable and life will be pretty good. But the problem is that he was only thinking of himself. Abraham gave him first choice because Abraham was kind, and Lot totally took advantage of the situation and thought only of himself. It doesn’t say he took half of the plains of Jordan, he took it ALL. Then he pitched his tent toward Sodom, which was an exciting, wicked city. and well things don’t end well for Lot. But Abraham because of kindness, his goodness is blessed immensely.
Sometimes, I feel a little like Lot. Ok, sometimes I feel a lot like Lot. Is it so bad to want to be comfortable, to want the best and to be set and not have to worry about drought (figurative drought) in your life. But the problem is that when we seek after the comfort of ourselves or only our family, somebody else or somebody else’s family gets the short end of the stick. Not only that, but we also lose the opportunity to build our faith. If we seek to always be perpetually comfortable, we never have the opportunity to get out of our comfort zone and actually grow.
To tie this all together, I have been feeling pretty selfish lately. In trying to make it through this last month, plan our upcoming birth, plan our adventure year of internships, I just want everything sorted out and comfortable. I don’t want it to be hard, I want everything to magically fall together without me even thinking about it. But I know that if that were to be the case, I would never gain the opportunity to stretch myself. To realize my potential, the power that I possess as a wife, a mother, a woman. So as much as I would love an entire month of unlimited HGTV and minesweeper, I know that if I continue devoting myself to being a mother, a friend, and loving wife I can continue in becoming the person that I want to be.
Because to me, I would rather turn into the person that God imagines me to be than live the life that the world tries to convince will make me happy.
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