Life is Messy

As 2013 came to a close, and 2014 began, I reflected for a moment about my year.  I think it goes down as the year I became "Mom."  My 9-year old did it.  He decided at some point, mid-year, that he would call us "Mom" and "Dad" thus making me feel old and sad.  For a while I just wondered who the heck he was talking to, and then I realized it was me.  I even asked him if he'd go back to calling me Mommy.  Nope.

But really, as I reflected, I think what I take from the year is that life is messy, and that's ok.  It's a new-ish place for me, as I really do like everything to be just so.  But enough years of adulthood have showed me that things just don't always go how you plan.

That must be why I love getting everyone's Christmas cards so much, especially the photo ones.  Lovely pictures of lovely people, all dressed up, smiling, sharing their Christmas joy.  And lovely Christmas letters to boot where accomplishments are shared, fun stories are told, and people sum up their year with all the neat things they did.  That pile of Christmas cards is a utopia of cheer and feeds well to a perfectionist like me with high expectations and a slightly unhealthy need for accomplishment.  Our Christmas card went out this year with a picture of us at the beach this summer.  'Cause it was fun and cute and I was too dang tired and busy to wrestle my toddler and the rest of the gang into matching clothes and find a photographer friend to sucker into being patient with us.

But I still wanted a Christmas "shot" of my family.  Here it is.  Warning:  it's lovely.

What you see is a nice family of 6 in their Christmas clothes standing in front of trees at church.  Not to mention a picture of Jesus in the background.  How nice!  What you don't see is the story.  That this wasn't even on Christmas, it was a week after because on Christmas Eve we had a few with fevers and coughs and half of Walgreens' pharmacy on our kitchen counter.  You don't see that we had to divide up to go to Christmas Mass and I went alone for the first time in my life to celebrate the Birth of Christ.  You don't see that what I really wanted was just a shot of the kids in front of those pretty trees, but the baby had a small fit and wouldn't leave my side so hubs and I jumped in the shot.  You don't see that my other daughter had just got done crying that she thought she lost her little stuffed owl that was clipped on her purse.  And that my sweet friend who snapped this shot had just told me through teary eyes that she broke down on Christmas day because of the recent loss of her newborn baby daughter. And so, through the mess of life, we were able to capture our sweet family and it'll be added to my Christmas book.  Perfect-o.

I love that life's messy and I love sharing those not-so-perfect moments with people.  I love that at the end of the day (or year) as messy as it is, time keeps on ticking and we have joy and hope and Jesus and each other.