A Perfect Life

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve glanced at my husband, or he at me, and we’ve agreed that our life is perfect.  When I say perfect I’m not talking about the kind of perfect you see in Better Homes and Gardens.

I’m talking about the kind of perfect when your family is bursting at the seams with love, and when you look around, you want to freeze time and just smile, despite the crumbs on the floor and the power bill that keeps getting forgotten.

I’m not trying to boast when I say this is how our life has been pretty much since we met. We’ve had our share of trials, but at the end of most days we have been happy and thankful, feeling that our life and our family is moving in the direction we’ve wanted and planned for.

We’ve always had enough, not always extra, but always enough of what we really needed. Is there always money or time for vacations?  Do we always get to eat what sounds good? Do we see every movie we want to? Nope.  But our needs have been met, and we’ve had our share, maybe even a tad more than our share, of luxuries.

I know looking back that we’ve had moments when life looked like it was going to get hard, and I know that we’ve sailed through those moments easier than I thought we would.  I’m afraid I’ve allowed myself to be under the illusion that it was our strength and grace, and the solidity of our marriage that brought us through the tough times with flying colors.

What a mistake.  How could I thank God every day for his blessings, and still go about shining my own apple, thinking that our life is so good because we have made it so?  Yes, we’ve made our plans.  Yes, we’ve worked hard.  But too often we’ve forgotten that we’re not the only ones with plans for our family.

Today I’m striving to remember that my life is not my own, and God’s plan is more perfect than I can imagine, even when I feel like life is going perfectly “my way”.

We’re facing a season of changes and folks, I’ll admit that while I’m excited, some days I’m feeling a little overwhelmed.  I’ve been that proverbial duck, calm and unruffled on the surface, paddling like a maniac below. Sometimes the paddling has helped me iron out details and more plans (there I go making plans again!), and other times it has just exhausted me.

Today my goal is to stop worrying and just be open to what God has laid out for us.

Today I’m choosing to have faith that our life will continue to be perfect, crumbs and all.