My friend Mary said something the other day which I find incredibly wise. She said something to the effect of, "Sometimes I wish we took videos of everyone running around trying to get ready in the morning before church. Because all we ever see are these perfect little families sitting in the pews as if they were made that way. No one ever sees the frantic-ness that goes on to make that happen!"
This statement came right after I'd been telling her about getting dressed for church and discovering that chapstick had been left in a pants pocket and run through the wash, resulting in a dime-sized grease stain in about THE worst place possible on the shirt I was going to wear. (I'll leave that one to your imagination. Trust me, it was bad.) That coupled with getting a bad night's sleep had left me in a foul mood all morning, so, of course, the best remedy was to whine to my friends.
Since then (and also since I managed to get the stain out-- let me just sing the praises of Shout's advanced stain formula!!!), I've decided that there was even more depth to Mary's idea than I at first thought. As I get to know people better, it often amazes me to realize that we all have trials that we're dealing with, 95% of which are not apparent on the surface. It's too easy to assume that we're the only ones who occasionally wake up tired and cranky and while we are desperately trying to look our best for everyone else, we feel like inside we're still frantic and our shirts have embarrassing chapstick stains on them. (Or something like that.)
Anyway, it made more sense when I was thinking about it late last night. Hopefully you're at least getting the idea.
4 comments:
One of my pet peeves is when people say "so and so has it all together, I wish I could be more like them." One thing I've learned is that NO ONE has it all together, no matter what the outside picture looks like.
I just finished reading A Tale of Two Cities and I love in the beginning when the narrator say "every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other." People are complex. So much makes up why and how they do things. Now, I'm glad that people don't walk around all the time showing their grumpy, bitter, saddened selves. But it just gives us all the more reason to reach out because we should realize that more people are like us then we think!
Just my two cents (or more like 2 dollars)!
Because we're so rushed every Sunday morning we usually pick on each other on the drive to church. If you see us canoodling at church it's because we're apologizing. Nobody has it all together.
I absolutely LOVE the fact that you used the word "canoodling"!!!! Br. Hayward used to make fun of Craig and I for being too affectionate-- I'm glad we're not the only ones!
Too too true, Alana! I think we all are suckers for comparison and seeing everyone else as a measuring stick. I think with church friends, it's easier to do this because often we only see each other once or maybe twice a week, one of those days being at church, and we just aren't around one another enough in day-to-day scenarios so we form a rather lopsided picture of our church friends because of this.
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