Wednesday, May 7, 2014

The stuff you won't see on Instagram

My first indicator of the kind of day that was coming at me was the time on the clock.
I woke up late.  Really late.
And because of my attitude of disgruntled-ness towards the Mr. the previous week that listening to him hit the snooze button 5 times in a row every single morning made me want to chop my ears off, I had been put completely in charge of getting us both up on time as he shut off all alarms of his own.
Oops. 

My husband showed major grace to me like he is typically known for and greeted me with an understanding smile and kiss and said, it's ok babe happens to us all instead of rubbing it in my face like he would have had every right to do.  
Learning humility is down right embarrassing sometimes.

The next thing that happened was a seriously annoying pain in my hip every time I took a step that made me wonder who put the rocks under the mattress that I must have slept on all night.
Ugh.

I groggily made my way to the kitchen to make some coffee-stat.  This morning needed some help and quick.  I spilled water everywhere.  I was now annoyed, sore, and wet all in the first 5 minutes of the day.  Kudos to the Mr for walking in and realizing I hadn't put a coffee mug under the coffee dispenser right before it shot out all of the floor.  

This is life.  Real life.  The day before had seemed kind of magical honestly.  We had celebrated our second anniversary of marriage and it had been a beautiful day of sweet remembrances, friends and family dropping by with sweet hugs and gifts and messages from faraway loved ones, a sweet flower delivery that arrived just before the Mr arrived home, and a perfect quiet night for just the two of us.  I must have soaked in all the goodness a little too much because the next morning was a wake up call like you wouldn't believe.
Can we all just go back to bed and go back to yesterday?  It was full of flowers and love and down right good stuff.  

And I didn't think of Instagram-ing or Tweeting any of this hot mess one single time.
Because you know, it wasn't pretty.  

We live in such a strange time.  We see a beautiful sunset and our first reaction can be to "instagram it" instead of praise the One who made it.  We spend hours staring at a computer screen "pinning all the things" all the while our own home is slightly falling apart because we can't pull ourself away from "all the screens"  We miss out on really connecting with someone because we can't really break away from the beeps and bzzs going off.  Out of all the blessings and miracles that God brings out of this age of technology-and oh does He-we are also tempted to be swayed to this dark side.  I'm not bashing this part of life, I'm a fan actually.  This blog has led me to connect with other people I would have probably never met otherwise.  I can't tell you how many times I open up Instagram or Twitter and I'm honestly blessed and encouraged by someone.  And let's not even get started on Pinterest, you know..you know...

But if we get too wrapped up in it-we'll miss it all.  And if we only post the "pretty" we'll miss it all as well.  Because even though it was harder to find, there was still beauty in the hot mess that was that morning.  As I leaned against the kitchen cabinet and held my head in my hands for a minute, ignoring the fact that we were still running late, late, late.  (Thanks to me no less.)  The Mr paused from his running around to take me in his arms and say a prayer over me I exhaled.  It was a new day, things going array or not, His mercies were still new, His faithfulness still real.  Enough to carry us through a day that starts off going in a million directions that all seem wrong to me.  

1 comment:

  1. So many of my friends, good people, also mostly post triumphs on social media. Heck, I do it too. We all have seen people posting something negative on social media and the internet coming to make fun of them rather than giving support.
    But every once in awhile it happens. Someone who seems to have their life together will post something about a big struggle they are having. One friend posted something in his blog about the trials of raising his 4 kids while he was still in school and now finally graduated and getting a job. His big, young family is so remarkable, it meant a lot to know that it was hard.
    It's always a big question: do I post when things are hard, or do I pretend everything is perfect, or at least just a silly joke?
    Thank you for your post. I'm about to work out and how I look now is not going on instagram. Ha. But I'll tell you I'm not great looking.

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