I always want to be good. For what I do to be right.
I want for the kind of mom I am to be the right kind. I want my efforts as a wife to be good, to be the kind I should be aiming for. I want our family to be right - not perfect, but right. Just as it should be. I want the friendships and relationships in my life to be right, too. I always want to do what's right, and often I am aware of my weak areas and willing, even striving, to change to move from wrongness into rightness. But there are times when what I really want, if I'm honest with myself, is to hear that what I am doing, what I want to do, what I am comfortable doing, is right - which in turn means I do not want to hear that what I am doing is wrong.
I want my faith to be right, too. I want to believe that the kind of Christian, or Christ follower, or believer, or whatever you want to call it, is the right kind. Because, you know, there really are all kinds.
But I guess sometimes, God has to bring it all crashing down to remind me that there is no right parent. There is no right friend. There is no right wife. And there is no right faith.
None of it. I can't be right, not really. Not the way I want to be. The way I strive to be.
But then He ever so tenderly reminds me that it's ok. I don't have to be right. I don't have to be good enough.
Because He is.
He is right, always. He is enough, always. He is perfect, always.
It's hard though, being reminded that I'm really and truly not all that.
It's humbling to have to ask for forgiveness, to admit I was wrong. Again.
But it's good, too. It takes the pressure off.
I don't have to be the perfect parent, because He is, and He loves my children more than I do - and He can walk them down their paths so much better than I could ever dream of.
I don't have to be the perfect wife, because He will guide and bless our marriage as He sees fit. And He knows oh so much better than I do what kind of marriage we should have.
I don't have to be the perfect friend, because through my mistakes and my weaknesses He will sharpen my friends, and through theirs He will sharpen me.
And I don't have to have a perfect faith. Because as small, as weak, as broken, as misguided as my faith often is, it is all I can give. And that is all He asks, that I give my all. And no matter how small or weak or wrong I am, He is big, and He is strong, and He is right.
And though I have no idea how to love perfectly, He does. And in His perfect love, He sees me and He loves me, and he patiently waits for me to get back up, dust myself off, and scoot out of the driver's seat I am constantly trying to steal from Him. He waits for me to look to Him again, to see the love in His eyes. He reminds me that He has me, all of us, in His hands. And then He leads me, gently yet firmly, right where He needs me to go.
And so I will follow. And I will trust in His goodness, and in His perfection, and in His will - and try yet again to let go of attaining those things myself.
