Hiding

The boys and I took a road trip a couple weeks ago.  By boys I mean just my kiddos, the hubby had to stay home and work.  You need to understand that I am not the kind of mom who plans and implements road trip games.  I admire moms who do this and always think I probably should try a little harder in this area, but it has yet to happen.  So road trips with me usually look like this:  the two older boys with headphones on watching dvd's, the little guy sleeping (hopefully) or stuffing his face with whatever treats are interesting enough to keep him from screaming his protest at being in the carseat, and me listening to my music pretending I'm on a nice, relaxing road trip all by myself.  On this particular road trip, however, I decided not to put up the dvd players.  Crazy, I know.  So I decided to check out books on cd from the library that might be interesting for all of us to listen to (aside from the little guy, of course, he's out of luck regardless).  The boys took the news remarkably well and chose to listen to Shiloh first.  I think I've seen the movie before, but never read the book so it was a new experience for all of us and the boys were surprisingly intrigued with it.

Towards the end of the book, while driving over Red Mountain Pass, the boy in the book made a statement that I have not been able to forget since.  I think it's important to note here that God always speaks to me when driving over this pass.  The college I went to required me to drive over this pass in order to get home so I have plenty of experience driving over it.  I can't explain it, but I always look forward to hearing what He has to tell me on this drive.  Anyways, the boy in the book wanted to buy a dog from a very mean man and had to work it off by doing chores for this man.  Toward the end of his time working, he started to realize some things about the man and noticed that the man was very particular about his truck.  He kept it perfectly clean, free of dents and was completely consumed with keeping it this way.  The boy made note that the man kept his truck in perfect condition to hide all the ways he was not perfect.  I was so convicted by this and have been mulling over it ever since.  I figure if I can't get it out of my head, God's trying to tell me something.

So I've been thinking, what am I trying to hide and what am I hiding behind?  Unfortunately, I've come up with quite a long list.  I've been attempting to ditch the effort at perfectionism through this blog and remind myself and others that it's okay not to be perfect, it's okay not to be okay, but I don't think I've been reminded enough.  It's so easy for me to get sucked back into worrying about what people think of me instead of just putting my effort into thinking about people.  I desire to focus on relationships yet I worry that my house isn't clean enough or nice enough to invite people over.  I desire to build new friendships yet I'm consumed with saying just the right thing, looking just the right way, so I chicken out convincing myself that when I have those things together I'll make that move.  I want to be more involved at my children's school, but I worry all the other "good" moms who volunteer weekly will look down their noses at me.  Really, I'm a mess!  I somehow have myself convinced that when I have all these things together, then I can really get to the important things I so desire; deep, meaningful relationships, honesty and integrity in my life, glorifying God in all I do, a heart that reflects His, etc. etc. etc.  God so wants to give me these desires of my heart but I have to stop hiding!