Let’s Be Real…

There is something that has been on my heart for a while now and I just felt the need to share it today.

The society we live in today is so…well, superficial. We only show our “best” on social media. We crop out the messy room behind us or the edit the dark circles under our eyes from loss of sleep from the struggles we are facing. We only show the good…and sometimes that “good” is just plain made up! We put our fake masks on every week and go to church pretending that we aren’t dying inside from some type of issue that we are facing in life. We talk about needing to be real with each other, but yet as a society we’re probably the most fake we’ve ever been! So many of us are hurting. So many of us have faced trauma. So many of us are deeply wounded on the inside, but we’re terrified to say so because “what will people think of me when they find out I really don’t have it all together?!?!” 

I just wish for one second we could all just put down our facades and be real. So maybe I’ll start by being real right now…

Hi, I am Haley. I’ve been a wife for 11 years now. I am also a mom to 3 boys whom I love dearly, but who drive me crazy almost every. single. day. Being a stay at home mom is hard. Sometimes I really want to hang it up and go get “a real job” (a term I really can’t stand because I work incredibly hard everyday…it’s just that I am compensated with hugs and love instead of a paycheck). I have endless loads of laundry beckoning me almost daily. The dishes are always dirty. The kids actually have to be fed 3 times a day (and like 5 million snacks in between). I homeschool my children, so we complete school every day. I now have a newborn so my workload has just increased dramatically…but you guessed it, I didn’t get a raise (unless you count the extra snuggles I get to have a day). Someone needs me almost every hour of the day because when my kids are finally asleep at night, I then need to switch gears and be a wife as well. 

Now, am I complaining? Nope! This is the life I chose. This is what God is calling me to right now. I know this because I desperately tried to fight it when it was time for my oldest son to start school. my plan was to go back to work and put my kids in school…but God let me know that wasn’t His plan, so I had to alter mine. I know my work matters, but it doesn’t always feel that way. Society makes it hard to be a stay at home mom these days. It’s hard living on one income! You feel pressured to bring some type of income in because the bills keep stacking up and you see your husband working his butt off to pay those bills. You wish you could relieve some of that weight off of him, but when you look at how many hours are in an actual day you have no clue how you could throw anything else on your to-do list! 

The truth is sometimes I dream of being able to drop my kids off at school for eight hours a day and be able to go to work so that it feels like I actually get something accomplished! Because no matter how much I clean the house and feed the kids, in just a matter of no time I have to do it all over again. But I can’t sit here and think of how someone else has it “better” than me. Some mom may very well be sitting at her job dreaming of my life because she just desperately wants to hang out with her kids all day and get to thoroughly enjoy watching them grow up!  

You see, envy robs us. Comparison robs us. They scream at us that what we have isn’t really good…that someone else has it better than we do, but that’s not true! Just because our lives are different than someone else’s doesn’t mean it worse…it’s just different. We see those “perfect” Instagram and Facebook pictures and we convince ourselves that other people have better lives than we do. Someone has the job, the car, the house, or the spouse that we’ve been wanting and it’s just not fair! Right? Or is it? You see, we have no clue what that person had to do to get that dream job, car, house, or spouse. We only see the here and now. Maybe they spent countless hours on their knees praying for the very thing we just wish would drop in our laps! We don’t know their story. We don’t know their heartbreak. We don’t know what it took for them to get to the place they are in life.

 Yes, envy and comparison rob us. Maybe that’s why we all put on our fake masks and pretend we really are “living our best life.” Truth is, we actually could be living our best life if we would just stop focusing on what we don’t have and focus and what we do have! I may not get paid for my job, but gosh darn it, when those kids pick up after themselves without being told, or say “I love you, Mama,” or when they are kind to someone else…that’s when I know it’s worth it! It’s worth the sacrifice of money and my time. I mean I’m teaching little humans to grow up to be amazing adults, and that’s important!

I am Haley. I don’t have it all together. I don’t have a “dream life,” I have faced trauma and hardships, but I still have a pretty great life! Yes, other people may have what I don’t have…but instead of focusing on how “unfair” it may be, I should probably just pray about it and let God give me what He has planned for me to have. And instead of focusing on what I don’t have, I probably should think of all the things I do actually have that someone else may not! Yes, maybe if we could do all of that and drop our facades with each other, we would all be happier and more full of joy! Stuffing our feelings down and putting on our masks; focusing on what we don’t have instead of focusing on what we do have, really is just a recipe for disaster. Joy and happiness do not come from things, people, or circumstances. Joy comes from Jesus; and when we stop focusing on the things that don’t matter and focus on what does matter…I think that’s when we see Jesus the most. Our vision isn’t clouded by disappointment and dissatisfaction, it’s illuminated by gratefulness and hope!