Liar, Liar...

Here's looking at you, kid...

I see you looking at me.

I'm the one who's got it all together.

I set my alarm clock early, and as soon as my feet hit the floor I'm smiling, ready to face the day. It's full of possibilities! Anything can happen! I'm in charge of my life and it. is. grand.

I exercise without complaining. I treat everyone that comes into my path just how I'd want to be treated, with a smile on my face and sunshine in my heart.

I cross everything off my to do list, even as I concentrate on people as my priority. Have I got time for you?

Yes, sir!  Yes, m'am.  Come on in, have a seat, and talk an hour or three. I give everyone whose path a cross my rapt attention, looking into their eyes and not spending my time thinking about what my next response will be.

I am patient with Caleb, and we spend the evening hours with family time, where we discuss our highs and lows of the day and talk about all we are grateful for and all we are blessed with.

I always pray and read my Bible- and it's not something to cross off my list!

Yes, that's me. Pinterest perfect. Instagram interesting. Facebook family-focused.

I am the epitome of perfection...

In my dreams.

These are all things I wish I was like. The prompt for #My500words was to lie... as much as we could. And these words above are pretty much all lies, because even though some of them may be partially true, a half-truth is still a lie.

I set out to be all these things, but then I get out of bed. I see I'm running late, and somehow, in the hustle and bustle of getting my ten bags out the door, I lose my sense of purpose and my sense of calm and get that hurried, wildwoman look that we all so often have but nobody posts on social media.

The fact is, it isn't hard to lie. I mean, as I typed  those words out, even though I knew that some of them were the polar opposite of me, I could almost squint and view my life from that perspective and see maybe how sometimes I am that woman. But I also cringed, because it seemed pompous and a little conceited.

The heart is a deceitful thing, but we too often listen to our feelings. We allow our small imperfections to convince us that we are less than, because we can never be the person we desire the most to be.

What if that person that you most deeply desire isn't who God designed you to be? What if  the imperfect, wild-eyed woman who sometimes exercises without complaint and sometimes throws up a "Help Me, Jesus" as she checks off her daily reading after a day of only adding to her to do list is really who God created you to be... because others see you and see you leaning into Jesus and see you putting people first most of the time and see you loving with action most of the time... and want to be like you, imperfect and all?

Let's stop lying to ourselves and trying to convince ourselves we have to be perfect... because imperfectly pushing toward a better self through Jesus is so much better. And that is the perfect truth.