For the Days when Everyone Else's Lives Look Better Than Your Own ~ Guest Post

Day in and day out I'm surrounded by possibilities.
What I choose to look at is one of them.
This modern interconnected world offers a door wide open into life anywhere I might want to go and anything I might want to see.
All these images offer up a tempting feast, inviting me to taste it all....
and it all looks good.
Most of the time it looks much better than my life right now.

In fall it's the images of leather boots and chunky-knit sweaters crunching through lanes sheltered by towering trees of gold and crimson.
It's pictures of perfectly orange pumpkins lined up in rows and sweet children with flushed cheeks beaming over their cups of cider.

Rarely are there photos of the pouring rain, the little one covered in mud from a tumble in the pumpkin patch, or two young ones fighting over the same pumpkin.

In winter it's the perfectly-built snowman, each button eye perfectly placed, carrot nose long and orange.
The snow is falling softly through the dusky, sparkling twilight.
Fires glow in fire places, children sit quietly sipping hot chocolate while dad reads a story that everyone listens to with sparkling eyes and contented smiles.

It's never shares of patchy, slushy gray snow that's been around for weeks, the chapped cheeks and fingers from the biting wind, or a house that's been ripped apart by the wild ones with cabin fever when the temperature won't budge over one degree for weeks on end.

Homeschooling is a delight with curated stacks of shiny, picturesque books, clay jars of sharply-pointed colored pencils, and neat stacks of faintly-lined notebook paper.
The children are always wearing the most-fashionable clothes, each hair neatly combed in place, and happy smiles on each face.

I've yet to see a home school feed where the books are falling apart, bound back together with a good dose of clear tape and strict orders that only mother can touch those books.
It's rare to see those lovely pencils as stubs, rolling under foot and on table and down into the edges of the couch where they were last used.
Not too many portraits shared of the little students in their dirty play clothes, hair bedraggled and bit dirty at the end of the day, being ordered outside with that stick to clean up the mess already!

Nature study photos always reveal exciting new finds.
Journals are faithfully kept, and each sketch is accurate and detailed and a miniature piece of art.

The pupils can't wait to head outside each day to learn more about God's creation.

I'm quite sure that not every child runs beaming outside to record the science living and breathing around them, though I don't think I've ever seen the pictures to prove that.

Homes are full of giggling children, each happy to be working with the other.
Chores are finished in record time, and each one checked-off on the adorable job chart hanging on the stainless steel refrigerator.
Food is prepared with plenty of helping hands cooking nutritious, delicious meals, most of it either raised in the family garden or purchased at the nearby farmers' market.

But I'm quite sure that somewhere there are siblings arguing a bit, chores that didn't get checked off that neat little chart {quite possibly they haven't been checked off for a week!}, a mother frustrated by all the finger prints on that shiny fridge, and food that might not be the most healthy, and might.....just possibly.....have come from a fast-food joint.

 I have come to realize that these beautiful images might be just that. Images.
They are a memory that someone wants to hold onto.
Nothing more.
That table loaded with all those tempting morsels to try?
If I don't have discernment, they can be poison.
Maybe they are someone's memories, but maybe they are a temptation of discontentment wrapped in a shiny package.

How often do I look at others' pictures and think my life should look the same?
Do I take time and acknowledge the fact that all of us share our happy images, our joyful moments, our best hair days, our most gourmet meals, the days when everything is actually going well instead of crumbling to pieces at our feet?

I usually snap the photos when the little ones aren't dirty, or covered in paint for the second time in one day, or haven't just been caught dumping out an entire bottle of shampoo in the bottom of the shower while mama was trying to get supper on the table.
Why wouldn't others do the same?

I catch up the things I want to remember, and frankly, some things I don't really need a picture of to do that.
As a mama of little people, the rough days aren't forgotten too quickly.

Many days I choose to take the pictures I do because I need to hunt for the beauty around me.
Why then do I look at all those images available to me, and assume that every one else must have a perfect life that looks exactly like their blog, their facebook timeline, or their Instagram feed?

And why, oh why, do I sometimes choose to waste my time looking at pretty pictures of other peoples' lives rather than living my own?

God, Help me choose wisely and well how I spend my time. Help me not feel obligated to do things just because I see others doing them. Remind me that I have just one life to live. Help me live it well. When I do have time to see the beauty others have captured, guard my heart against envy and discontentment. I want to appreciate it all for what it is ~ lovely memories that others have been kind enough to share. Give me wisdom to know when enough is as good as a feast. Amen.

*Sharing my happy images here and hoping everyone knows that my life has it's ups and downs, good days and bad days, just like yours. And sometimes? It's easy to wish my life looked as pretty as somebody else's.


This is post was written by Patty, missionary wife in Ghana.  To read more, click here to go to her blog.

Sustained Through Fear and Doubt by God's Grace

This week’s Missionary Monday is a guest post, an excerpt of some correspondence that my friend Jennifer McPhail, ministering in Cambodia, has had recently with her mother and sisters.  They enjoyed reading together One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp. Each person read the assigned chapter and then sent an email to the others with their thoughts so that they could discuss its contents with one another as they have time.  Jennifer was supposed to send her contribution but instead chose to express her heart to them about what God had been speaking to her about going to Ta Lo.   

“I have read the chapter, but now I have the beginnings of one of my "Ta Lo headaches" (We often return from Ta Lo with a terrible headache), so I do not promise to do well on book discussion.  Let me add that I am very thankful to have been to Ta Lo today.  In fact, I wanted to share about my day as it relates to Allison's talk about dwelling on worst-case scenarios.

I too have the curse of an over-active imagination.  Yesterday evening when Forrest called Poh about going out there for services today, Forrest was planning to go alone.  We've just recently had all this flooding, and along with the water comes increased snake activity on the remaining dry land.  Peht just recently killed a cobra that was after one of his small children.  So I was glad I wasn't going.  But then Poh's wife asked if I was coming this time, and Forrest asked me if I would.  Both of us have been sick, and with his trip to Phnom Penh (this past week) and the Carlyles coming in tomorrow (returning from furlough), I asked if we could take the truck in, if he thought it would make it.  He did, and so I made plans to take the whole family to Ta Lo.  I know now I must have had some trepidation last night, because I woke up with fear this morning.

My fears were of a number of dangers, but mainly snakes.  And I had unreasonable fear about Sierra and the water or the snakes.  I tried to think how I could stay home or leave them here, but I knew they needed to be with mom and dad on this day and not home alone.  I wrestled and prayed desperately, "Lord, I know this fear is not from you.  I can't control it, and I am going to read my Bible now, but I don't know how it is going to help, since I am reading in Job, Ezekiel, and Revelation!"  I am in the middle of all of these books, so I kind of know the themes, and I couldn't think how God could speak to my need through this.  I started with Revelation 13, since I usually start in the NT.  Verse 10 says,

If anyone is to be taken captive, into captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain.

Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.

I was bowled over!  This passage is in reference to the saints that will be conquered and martyred by the Beast and the False Prophet, but it sounds like it is an encouragement of a sort that if God plans for one of them to be imprisoned or die a certain way, they shouldn't try to escape it.  Instead, endure and have faith! 

It is so obscure and bizarre, but God used this to help me today, and I wanted to share!  The day was not easy, but there were many answers to prayer.  I had to go to the market at 6:45, which is way earlier than a lot of things are usually available, but they had just the things I needed for a noodle stir-fry to take to Ta Lo.  The road was bad, but it was passable, and our 4-wheel drive worked great.  We had lots of family time in the car, and the kids were really into pointing out things to one another and being pleasant (for the most part). 

When we got to the part I was dreading, where we leave the car and walk in through the small lake, the water was lower than I was expecting, about three inches above my knee.  Forrest carried Sierra, and I carried our books and the food bag.  The other kids were troopers, and they just love that walk.  Sierra and I are always trailing way behind, but she loves to skip and stop to look at things.  I tried to look hard at the path but not fret about the tall grasses and rice beyond that.  We didn't meet any snakes, and all six of us got in and out without any leeches, either. 

I did, however, have a number of adventures.  First, it was great that I had brought food, since they didn't have any at home, and hadn't seen any of the itinerant sellers that go out to the "main" road where our car was.  They did kill a chicken, but it obviously wasn't truly ready for butchering and made for a scant soup made with green papaya.  So I used the skills I had learned over the weeks watching Teem and Panna cook for our in-between service meal.  I washed my spinach and made sure I poured the water from that washing into the dish pan.  I chopped my veggies and garlic and disposed of the scraps in the right place.  I used the right knife for the vegetable and the machete for the meat.  And then I went and washed the wok in the dishpan with my used veggie-wash water and a piece of mosquito net for a rag.  I set it on the three stones used for a fire pit, and Teem helped arrange the fire under it.  It was already started from the rice and then the soup cooking.  I got some oil from the "counter" made from the wood planks they are stockpiling to build a better house at some point.  And I cooked my part of the meal over the open fire, squatted down on my heels.  I got to talk to __ about her husband and his church discipline that started today.  He has been such a trial for her!  I told her about Granny (Jennifer’s grandmother was a godly woman who had suffered much from marital difficulties), and I also explained how church discipline helps a sinning believer and puts it all in God's hands and not ours, after we have fulfilled our part of trying to dissuade a brother from sinning. 

Then I noticed that three of my children were in the watering hole out behind the house!  They were so muddy, and they were having a blast!  I had to get more water to clean them off enough for the meal, and I felt bad about that.  Panna was feeling sick, and her baby was ill too, so I asked her what to do, and she had me serve the kids first.  One Khmer platform bed is under the lean-to of their one-room house, and the other is under the thatched kitchen roof.  The adults eat "in the kitchen," and the kids eat and have Sunday school on the bed by the house.  There are not enough dishes for everyone, so we eat in shifts, kids and then adults.  There are usually three glasses to drink out of, but today there were just two, so I am afraid one must have broken.  There are piglets and chickens and dogs and a cat all running around too.  It is a beautiful chaos!

After we ate, I skipped out on clean-up to go teach Sunday school.  Forrest had already taught one session mainly to Poh before we ate, and they would start the worship service whenever clean-up was done, regardless of whether our class was done yet.  Poh had the book since before the flooding, but he expects me to teach when I come out.  That is a little difficult, since I can't prepare the lessons.  So he told me what he taught last time, and I was to go on with Cain and Abel.  I was thinking hard and fast, and so it took me a minute to register when the adorable little guy to my left looked at me with big eyes and said, "Teacher, that's a scorpion on your arm!"  I scrambled around so fast I lost track of the little critter for a minute, and then when I tried to swat it with the lesson book, it went in between two of the planks of the bed platform, and I couldn't get it out.  I was VERY AWARE of my surroundings after that.  Thankfully, I did not get bitten, nor did anyone else.  The six little children out there are so precious, and my four mixed very well with them today.  They played the rest of the time after the lesson, while I went and joined the adults.  There were a couple unsaved people there today, and so much opportunity on every side.”