The Best Kind Of Challenge.

Today I am blogging about my absolute favorite challenge of these entire three months. It’s a challenge that is nothing short of a gift, one I am humbled to have received and one that I hope to live up to.

In August of 2014, my friend Joanna was diagnosed with melanoma, underwent surgery, and is currently walking through treatment. She is such an amazing woman, no blog post can describe her to you as I see her. Joanna and her husband have 4 adorable children, full of energy and life. And I currently get to spend most of my time with them.

Joanna is the kind of mom I want to be. The kind of in-love-with-Jesus, real, beautiful, strong, supportive, loving, kind woman that I can’t help but look up to. What a gift to know her and to spend time with her, to watch her kids grow every day, and to walk beside this family that I love so much.

I’ve been learning so much the past few weeks about taking care of a family, what that really looks like. For instance, going to the grocery store is not a leisurely trip. Shopping includes bundling up the kids, packing them into the car, enduring the drive to the store, getting them out of the car, putting them in the shopping cart, saying “no” to a variety of food items that somehow ended up in the cart, getting through the checkout line without drawing attention to yourselves, putting groceries in the car, putting the kids in car, driving home, and finally unloading the kids and groceries from the car. My normal shopping trip goes something like this: climb into the car, drive to the store listening to calming music, get to the store and get what’s on my list, go through the checkout line like a pro, load up the car with groceries, go home. Less steps, but honestly way less fun.

Today I walked into preschool with three kids, two of them still in their PJ’s (luckily just the two who weren’t going to preschool). I think that I actually felt embarrassed for a second, like all the other moms were judging me, “9:00 and she didn’t even get the kids dressed yet? She’s obviously unqualified to care for another human being”. But after a moment or two I made a decision: I refuse to be one of those moms who projects her perfectionism on her kids. So now I’m working on it.

My sweet Ella (4) gave me another lesson in letting going of perfection this afternoon…

She painted my nails.

At first, with every stroke of the brush,
every glob of nail polish that landed on my skin, I think I cringed a little bit. She worked
so hard, wiping off

(smearing) the nail
polish that ended up “out of the lines”, and making sure she covered every inch
in sparkles.

As she worked, I began to scold
myself for caring about nail polish on my skin. When I watched her cute little
fingers holding the brush, and her determined face as she opened a new bottle
of polish, I couldn’t help but relax into my mish-mosh manicure. Of course I’ll
probably take it off tonight when the OCD kicks in and just can’t help myself,
but for now I am content in the imperfection that this taste of motherhood has
brought me.