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“Delight yourself in the Lord”
Psalm 37:4 ESV

I was “that” girl.

The wife and mother, who kept an immaculate home, had a homemade dinner on the table every night, volunteered at the kids’ school and taught Bible study at church. It was truly a beautiful life.

Then my husband became terminally ill.

Two years later, he died.

My house may never have everything clean all on the same day again! My kids eat cereal for dinner at least once a week. I am juggling full time employment (thankfully with a flexible schedule), ministry work, solo parenting and grief management.

It’s not such a pretty thing from the outside anymore. There is dust and there are sticky places on countertops. There is clutter and there are unmade beds {gasp}. Sometimes I’m not even sure if the pile of clothes on the laundry room counter just came out of the dryer or is supposed to go in the washer!

Believe it or not, this type “A” girl is laughing as I write. (I’m also envisioning the granola crumbs in the door handle of my car and the mud from the barn in the floor mat of the passenger seat. I should probably be vacuuming that instead of typing this!)

Oh what a crazy ride this life is. Sometimes I am traveling so fast I don’t know whether to throw my hands up and scream in delight or grab the roller coaster handlebar tightly and yell for it all to stop. Guess what? Neither will slow the motion.

So I am going to choose delight!

I like clean and orderly, my house will never get “gross” to the point a full crew will be needed to scrub away the filth, but it tends to stay a bit cluttered these days. I am letting go of my standards of perfection and am learning to accept that my best effort is good enough.

Trying to do it all and constantly failing just makes me grumpy. My kids deserve better than a grumpy mom. I deserve better than a grumpy self! Grumpy doesn’t solve anything.

So I laugh and choose delight. I give each day the best of me and I let the rest land on tomorrow’s to do list. I spend time with God, soaking up His wisdom.

What is the more important lesson here for my children? That we keep everything pristine or that we love this life we have been given? Don’t get me wrong, we respect and appreciate our property, taking good care of it. We simply no longer fret over perfection.

I delight in the Lord. Taking delight in Him is finding my worth in Him. My worth doesn’t come from an immaculate home that is always “show ready”. Would I like to be able to one day keep a spotless home again? Truthfully, yes. Am I going to beat myself up because it isn’t possible at this phase in my life? No. I’m not.

What I am going to do is continue to lean heavily into my Savior for His strength and power, and I am going to throw my hands in the air and scream delight in my Lord.

Father God, I delight myself in You! You see past my mess and see into my heart. I know I have young eyes watching me on this journey, seeing if I will respond grumpy or with laughter to the chaos. When I allow myself to not expect perfection from me, it frees my children to do their best and then let the rest go. That’s the true life lesson I want them to learn. Our best is good enough because of Your grace and mercy. Amen.