the secret to happiness

Want to know the secret to happiness? Want to know how to make your heart giggle and your feet do the snoopy dance?  I'll tell you the secret, but you have to promise me one thing.  When you hear the secret, you will let it speak to your heart.  Promise? Good.

Here's the secret: Good Enough is Good Enough!

You see, I once had the perfect life, but didn't know it was perfect because all I could see was what was wrong.  My boys were wonderfully into everything and bouncing off the walls, but I had a hard time enjoying it because the kitchen was messy.  My husband was constantly trying to talk to me about something, but I couldn't really listen because I was busy trying to find a way to organize my chaotic life.  My precious books were calling out to me, but I had to ignore them because there was laundry to fold. Life was perfect, but I was not happy.

Then I had a sweet baby Charlie Brown and my life became even more perfect and I realized that I had two choices.  The first was to go on trying to obtain perfection while missing out on my already perfect life and eventually end up picking out my padded cell, OR I could stop trying to obtain perfection and allow myself to enjoy the perfection that God has given me. 

And then it hit me.  When someone says that something is "Good Enough" they're not saying that it's mediocre or that it leaves room to be greatly improved.  They're saying that it's GOOD ENOUGH!  Good enough doesn't mean that you're lazy or don't love your husband or wish that your children lived in another county.  Good enough means that you realize that perfection is an unobtainable goal, and if perfection could be reached, it wouldn't last - especially not in this house!

Now I still have the same perfect life that God has given me, but I know it's not something that I have made. My family is a gift from God, and you know that God don't make trash! :o)  So what if the dishes aren't always done before I go to bed or if I caught Oz eating yesterday's lunch off of the floor this morning or if Conner's feet were dirty when he went to bed or if Charlie Brown runs around in a diaper all day.  That just means that I played with the boys until bed time and lunch was yummy enough that stale leftovers were palatable and Conner was outside all day and Charlie barfs a lot and I'm too lazy to keep changing his clothes.  And it also means that all my boys have a much happier mommy and wife who is actually PRESENT when she's present and not already mentally moving on to the next task.

Good Enough is Good Enough has brought me a long way, and it's taking me to new limits this week. On Monday we will pack up the majority of our earthly possessions and move some five hours away to Hartselle.  We've been packing like banshees for about a month now, and have moved all of the boxes into our living room/dining room where they can easily be loaded into the truck.  What's more is that we have completely cleaned and closed off the guest room, our bedroom and the master bathroom leaving us all five living in what is left of the living room/dining room and the master bedroom.  We've been living the hotel life this week, only the housekeeping staff here really stink.  :o)  
The old me would have gone bonkers, but the new me is enjoying these last few days of insanity.  The house is a mess, but there's not a whole lot I can do about it right now.  But I can lay around outside basking in the shade ('cause pasty white girls don't do sun) and blow raspberries on Charlie's tummy.  I can read Oz "Yucky Yucky" fifteen times in a row.  I can play "Where? Where is it?" with Conner. And tomorrow night I can feel all warm inside when I hold my breath to listen to all four of my guys snoring in syncopated rhythm. 

perfectly imperfect

This morning at exactly 4:36 I found myself mentally blogging. I find myself doing that quite often. It's an odd habit for multiple reasons.  The first being the most obvious - who mentally blogs before the sun is up? The second being the shear fact that I did not at that point actually have a blog. 

Now, I could easily blame this little odd quirk on my father who recently told me that he enjoyed my blog posts on spark.com and encouraged me to continue writing.  He's good for the old self esteem, my dad, but honestly, I know that we're so similar that it's quite possible that my musings, like so many of my jokes, would only be understood by the two of us. So, it's not really fair to blame him. Especially since I've been mentally blogging for years now.

Okay, so when I was twelve I didn't know it was mental blogging, mainly because blogs did not, to my knowledge, exist back then.  I always thought of it as a narration of my life.  I've never really wanted to be famous, but I've always had some sick fantasy that my every mundane thought was extremely interesting as if I were famous. I find my thoughts to be interesting.  In fact, I find my thoughts to be down right thought provoking.  So why wouldn't everyone else?  And now, thanks to modern technology you too can be provoked by my thoughts.  But, don't blame it on my dad.  He's not forcing you to read this.  (He's not is he? He promised that he wouldn't.) (He didn't really, but I could go force him to promise to not force you and then I wouldn't have lied, but is that really necessary?)

So, now that you know my deepest darkest secret, you should also know my intentions.  I must give you some sort of hope that there's an actual point to this, mustn't I? 

I have found that I am a lot of different titles. I am a child of God.  I am a preacher's wife. (ooh! scary!) I am a mother. I am a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend, a student, and a citizen.  I could go on.  (In fact, I did, but I deleted about twelve other titles.)  And, in being all these many many things, I am still Mandy. 

So many times, I feel pressured (mainly from myself) to try to fit this cookie cutter mold in order to embody my titles.  When Jeremy and I first decided to enter the ministry, I was kind of freaked out by the idea of being a preacher's wife. I mean, if you're reading this, you probably know me. And if you know me you probably know that I'm not perfect. And preacher's wives are supposed to be perfect, right?  They should wear aprons when they bake homemade bread and know how to wear panty hose longer than five minutes without getting a run. They should be able to quote the Bible from cover to cover whilst playing the organ. And, most importantly, they should never ever sing obnioxiously to the Muzak at Hobby Lobby.  Or at least that's what I thought. 

And then my dear preacher's wife, Judy, (who will always be my preacher's wife, even though I technically am my own preacher's wife since my husband is my preacher...) gave me a reality call like only she can.  "Do you think I'M perfect?" she asked. "Heck, no!" But she is perfect. Not perfect in everything she does, but perfect for the job that God has called her to do.  And I am perfect for what God has called me to do.

And here's where the blog comes in.  This is where I will discover how to be Mandy while fulfilling my titles. And, hopefully, this is where you can see that you don't have to be a perfect person to be perfect for the jobs that God is calling you to do, either.  Besides, a look into my life is bound to make anyone feel better about theirs.  We Harbins live a wonderfully crazy life, but I wouldn't trade it with anyone's. (not that I've had any offers...)