Who are You Listening To?

If you make a comment on Facebook and nobody “likes” it, is the comment still valid?

Bear with me…today’s post isn’t about another authentic mother. It’s about this mother…and some thoughts I’ve had.

Yesterday was vacuuming day. I think when I vacuum, and so yesterday I did a lot of thinking. And I began to wonder why it was that I so quickly became bored to death of me. Yes, part of the reason is that I really don’t like writing self reflecting essays. It’s really not my style. To write those kind of posts one must be much wordier, and use better analogies. I am a straight forward kind of person, and therefore a straight forward kind of writer. But that is only part of the reason. The second piece is much more concerning to me.

You see…when I was writing those self reflecting essay little voices kept whispering

“Who do you think you are? Why would anyone care what you have to say? You aren’t a real writer”

I hate those voices. They are the same voices that make me question what I post on Facebook, why I post on Facebook and why other people are posting what they’re posting on Facebook. It doesn’t always happen…but they show up every now and then. Sometimes I’m better at ignoring them.

Truthfully they reveal a deeper issue which is simply; that I don’t think that what I have to offer is good enough. And so I look for affirmation for what I think, what I do, what I look like. The real trouble comes when I look for that affirmation on Facebook.

One of my favorite children’s books is “You Are Special” by Max Lucado. My children know it’s my favorite and so sometimes they will choose to read it just to humor me. It’s the story of a group of wooden people, called Wemmicks. The wooden people walk around all day, every day, giving one another stars or dots. They give a star if a Wemmick is pretty or talented. They give a dot if the Wemmick is ugly or foolish. In the course of the story the main character, Punchinello, learns that it is possible to prevent the stickers (both stars and dots) from sticking. He learns that they only stick if he lets them. And the best way to prevent the stickers from sticking is to visit Eli, the wood maker every day.

I imagine that Facebook is much the same. All day, every day, people post comments, in hopes of being rewarded with stars (likes or funny comments) or dots (nasty comments or worse yet <crickets>). Facebook isn’t my problem. It’s because I’m letting the stickers stick that Facebook is a problem.

A few years ago, shortly after I’d finished nursing my third child, I decided it was time to figure out what bra size I was. Now if you’ve had children you recognize what nursing three sweet babies will do to bra size.

What you need to know, is that at this point in my life I was very happy with where I was physically. I was preparing for my very first triathlon ever and so I was in pretty good shape. I knew that I was not overly endowed but I was happy with my overall physical appearance.

So…I go to “the source” to get my measurements. The source being the INTERNET for information. More specifically…Victoria’s Secret webpage. I follow the step by step instructions on how to measure oneself for cup size. Not being completely daft, I quickly ascertained that I need to re-measure myself as the numbers did not seem to be adding up. The numbers come out the same both times. Both times I calculated a negative number.

Now, if this is the first time heard about cup size, let me tell you…a negative number ISN’T a cup size. So not only was I not even an A, I might well be concave!

You can imagine what this did to my self esteem. The thing is, nothing had changed in the hour it took me to follow all of those instructions and calculate my negative cup size. I was still the same size, in the same physical shape…I looked EXACTLY the same. But I was allowing myself to get the grey dot.

Thankfully I have a sweet DH. He informed me that he still thought I was sexy (good man!) and judiciously suggested I be measured by a professional. Sweet, sweet man. Turns out I’m not concave after all.

Yesterday morning I sat with God. I cozied up and read from my devotional. And then I grabbed my journal, wrote down the date and began to scribble. I had a nice conversation with God…it was the beginning of my thought process of not being good enough. You see the scripture I read yesterday was Ephesians 3:7-12. I’ll highlight the portion that struck a cord…

⁷ I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. ⁸ Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, ⁹ and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. ¹⁰ His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, ¹¹ according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. ¹² In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

When I sat down with that same devotional today I realized that yesterday I had read the wrong date. Accident…most assuredly. But I believe that the Holy Spirit was pointing me to a dark corner of my mind that I have yet to clean out. The corner that allows those thoughts to take hold…and paralyze me from being who He created me to be. I am allowing the stickers to stick.

My point…in all of this rambling, is that I need to stop listening to those ugly voices in my head, or miscalculated labels from the internet. I know, without question, that God has me exactly where he wants me in this life. The more time I spend listening to what He has to say, to how He sees me…well the less those stickers stick. Dots or stars.