Early on in our journey, I spent a season wallowing in self pity. It’s easy to feel sorry for yourself when you have a child with a disability. Heck, it’s easy even if you don’t!

A wise friend once told me that the remedy for self pity is to serve others; and when it’s possible, spend time serving as a family.

As always she’s right. Serving others is extremely powerful. Not only does it keep us from self pity & isolation, but it teaches us to give and to love others. Most importantly, it helps our eyes focus… so we can truly see that we are blessed despite our circumstances.

Yesterday we took our kids to serve for the Manna Project. Laynie and her daddy arrived on time… Gideon and I were late, since he decided to take an early nap. Kevin and Laynie served by measuring out & boxing up rice, beans and soy. Laynie was eventually moved (with the other little kids) to coloring and decorating the boxes. I helped keep the kids on task and Gideon….well, Gideon was unable to help physically. But he brought smiles to all the volunteers….so I would think that’s a huge help!!

The big take away was that we spent two hours as a family working towards a common goal that would bless others. It led to some amazing conversations with Laynie. It gave me fresh eyes to see my son and how fortunate we really are.

It was through our mission to bless others that we realized… we are the blessed. In 2 hours, all campuses combined packaged more than 200,000 meals. While that’s wonderful news, I can’t help but think, what if we served for just one more hour? What if we did this every weekend?

Maybe I’m becoming an idealist, but how would our world (and our children) be changed if we spent more time serving others with our families, instead of just serving our families?

I love capturing the perfect family photo. You know, the one where everybody is looking at the camera and smiling. But if we are honest, attaining a photo like this requires a tedious process that usually involves elevated blood pressure, bribery and the inevitable threats.

And all for what?! So we can post it to Facebook as if to say to the world, “Look at us! We have the perfect family and the perfect life!” Well let me go ahead and tell you that our family is not perfect, nor do we have it all together.

To get the photo above, it takes a grueling process- one that makes me more and more aware that I have a long way to go as a parent… heck, as a person. Anytime I need a lesson in patience or grace, we can just go take family photos.

So here is reality… For every great photo you see of us, there are 50 others that are pure crap. I’m sad to say, those other crappy photos show just how far I have to go as a mom.

So I wrote a poem to express how this process to picture perfect goes down for us…every…freaking…time.

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To get the perfect picture, I think we would all agree,

That everyone needs to smile by the end of “1-2-3”

But rarely does that happen, on the very first shot,

Because someone’s never ready, this happens quite a lot.

Sometimes you get a good one, and it really blesses your heart.

But you can’t get over the fact, that you’re standing so far apart!

And as you move in close, the smiling can never quit.

Unless your youngest child is about to throw a fit.

When he’s found your hair it’s over, the next few photos will be crap.

And you begin to rethink your idea, that he could skip his afternoon nap.

“Keep smiling” you tell everyone, hoping the chaos will soon cease.

Dad begins to laugh, because mom’s blood pressure has increased.

Finally everyone is positioned, but no one is looking except for mom.

She’s the only one stressing about this, which looking back, seems quite dumb.

But we have to get a good one and so grandma keeps on clicking.

And then the oldest turns around, to express her clock is ticking.

“Someone might get the pumpkin I want!” with attitude she screams,

“First we do photos, then we’ll find the pumpkin of  your dreams.”

“But I want to go look now!! Oh mom I just can’t wait.”

“If you turn around & smile, we’ll stop for ice cream cake!”

And when the groans begin, mamma is done being sweet.

“Turn your sassy self around, or you’ll never get another treat!”

With everyone facing forward, finally there’s hope of a great picture.

But dad’s arms are tired, trying to keep brother from kicking sister.

Between the youngest & the oldest, you’ve captured restlessness & sass

And if you weren’t at a church, you’d certainly whip the oldest’s…ugh, bottom.

And just when you think you have had more than you can take,

A sweet moment happens, so a smile you quickly fake.

But the oldest isn’t on board, so the threats again are thrown out.

So she fakes it with the best of them, isn’t that what this is all about?

We need the perfect picture to hang on our perfect wall.

So everyone on social media can think we have it all.

And that’s why I’ve posted this progression, so you can see we’re all the same.

We all have struggles and issues, trying to keep that perfect image is to blame.

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I hope that you can relate and I hope this made you smile. If it did, please share it with your friends and family. If you have a funny family photo that shows your imperfections, please post it in the comments below so we can all smile together.

Happy Fall from our imperfect family to yours!

 

 

I’m not sure why at this point, but I’m always blown away by the out pour of love for Gideon and for our family. While G was in the hospital we had SO many people reach out & do some wonderful things for us. I have so many people to thank and not enough thank you cards. So like a celebrity who just won an academy award, I’d like to take up some cyber time to thank some people…

To all those who sent a text/called/emailed/Facebooked to check on us and/or pray for us, thank you so very much!! Your words were encouraging and it was such a blessing to know that others were interceding at the Throne of Grace on our behalf. So many of you tried to help out by taking Laynie for us, but the G-Ma’s just wouldn’t give her up. Thanks anyways for trying!! 🙂

To Jamie- thanks for having dinner delivered to us this week. Even though your my P31 trainer, you lovingly turned a blind eye at my request for Mogio’s Pizza. Thanks for not judging…I’m sure you’ll kick my butt in class.  😉 PS: Please don’t read the next paragraph.

To my life group girls- you ladies are wonderful. Many of you stepped up and offered to host and lead Bible study for me (on that rather crazy week) and I’m just so grateful. I can’t even believe I get to “do life” with such an amazing group of women. Shout out to Molly- she sent her hubs to Mardels to get me a free box sea salt caramels!!

To the Abbett Family- you guys absolutely rock. I love that Kevin works with such an amazing group of people. We are so grateful for all the gift cards and I am SO looking forward to having an excuse NOT to cook once in a while. Seriously… poor Kevin did NOT marry a Rachel Ray. So thank you, thank you, thank you!

To the people who sent items/gift cards/cash via snail mail… you totally caught me off guard and I love it!!! Thank you! At the rate this is happening, my neighbors are going to start wondering why I cry every time I stand at the mailbox.

While in the hospital, one of those packages we received was an Upsee device that we’ve been wanting to try out with Gideon.

To my cousin, Kristen- thank you for setting this up. Your heart saw a way to bless our family and you jumped in with both feet. You’re beautiful. (And thanks for the necklace!)

To everyone who donated for the Upsee- I’m just speechless. When I think of all that’s already been done for Gideon- for our family- I just can’t even fathom that people would continue to love on us in this way. I’m SO incredibly grateful… words are simply inadequate to describe how thankful we are for your generosity. So I’ll just say thank you.

To my parents and my in-laws- we thank you the least, when we should be thanking y’all the most. You guys are always there. Day or night, rain or shine… you never say no when we need help and often times, we don’t even have to ask… you just show up. And that means so much and we never want to take that for granted. Even though you guys do fudge the bed times, buy too many stuffed animals, and allow too much sugar… we COULD NOT travel this road without you guys. So Mimi, Papa, Gamma, & Poppa J, thank you!

Now let me close by saying this… Please forgive me if I have forgotten to thank you. There has literally been an OUT POUR of love over the past two weeks, but due to lack of sleep, my mind is mush. I truly want to thank everyone because I’m sincerely grateful. If you’ve done something for us and I did not already thank you, please accept this as my thank you to you. You’ve loved us well and we are overwhelmed by your servant’s heart.

(Cue music to cut me off and awkwardly rush me off stage…)