Have you ever tried to be somebody you’re not and forgot the unique beauty God put in you?
For many years (decades actually), I believed a lie: that I would not be a good wife or mother. I bought into this lie mainly because:
1. I can’t have biological children. I was born with a rare condition which includes being born without a uterus. I know that is a lot of information, but that was part of the lie.
2. I hate to clean, and not only do I hate it, I am not very good at it.
3. I loathe the kitchen.
For these 3 reasons I used to believe that no one would want to marry me. I mean, aren’t those big things in being a wife?
I am still not married, but God is starting to reveal the ugliness of that life and is showing me what makes me unique. I recently had a conversation with a client of mine, and this older gentlemen said to me, “Lindsay, my wife couldn’t do laundry twice in one week without messing it up, but she wrote curriculum for children regarding Jesus that is taught in 40 different countries all around the world. The right husband for you will see your God-given gifts and talents and encourage you in those. At our house we find another way to get the laundry done.”
He also said, “Just be honest…don’t pretend that you are good at those things if you are not”.
It’s almost like this man knew what I was about to do a month later, and he was warning me!
You see, I have had a little Christmas tradition for the past 10 years. I would start right after Thanksgiving on my Christmas cards. I would take time to handwrite sweet words in each to encourage and lift up my friends and family during the Christmas season.
This year I even decided to take my love of creativity to another level. Basically, out of a desire to make my Christmas cards reflect my new season of life in Southern California and my love of Jesus, I was going to make my own. I zipped off to Hobby Lobby and got all the makings to get started on hand crafting each card with love.
It was my way of doing what I can do to spread love this season in a way that is unique to me. Others may hate doing Christmas cards. Some get them made, and oh, how I love those as well, but for me, this is something I enjoy so why not spend the time to do it?
All of this was fine and good, until I had this other idea to make buckeye candy for some friends here in LA, a traditional holiday treat in my hometown in Ohio. Although I hate the kitchen, it just seemed like what a 30-something year old woman should be able to do.
The “should be’s” will always get you in trouble!
Off to the store I went to grab ingredients. As I googled for the recipes before I left and some “how-to videos,” all I kept finding was how easy it was to make them. I figured that I could do this too.
As the recipe said, I put all the ingredients into a bowl and mixed it up, but it looked NOTHING like the little how-to video I had been watching over and over again. Thankfully my rock star friend was in town from Thailand, and she helped me to do a little of this and a little that to make my dough more usable. A few days later when my friend was gone, I got out the round balls and proceeded with the next step:
Melt chocolate and dip.
Seemed simple enough, right? Well let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I couldn’t figure out what on earth a double boiler was, so I figured you have to be able to microwave this stuff, right?
So, I made sure I had a glass bowl, dumped my chocolate chips in, and popped them in the microwave. But, when I got them out they smelled burnt. I burnt the chocolate. Is that possible? In a microwave? Can you burn chocolate in a microwave?
Answer: I guess so!
So, I proceeded to dip my crunchy peanut butter balls (because I accidentally got crunchy peanut butter instead of smooth so my peanut butter balls were crunchy) into my burnt chocolate. As I was making a huge mess in my newly cleaned kitchen, I suddenly realized that this was not fun nor was it simple.
I realized some people pay for their Christmas cards and like to make sweet things in the kitchen. I am the opposite; I make my Christmas cards and pay for the sweet things that come from the kitchen.
Although my “wife skills” may not be what the world would hold in high esteem as skills that make a good wife, I of course, like you have some pretty cool qualities that would make a super precious, supportive, caring, prayerful wife.
I suddenly realized I was trying to be someone I wasn’t. My landlord is a rocking girl in the kitchen. My friend from Thailand could probably make a 5 course meal over a fire pit, but me, not so much!
It’s time to just be honest with ourselves. If you are a rock star in the kitchen, I applaud you and encourage you to keep being who you are, knowing it is a gift that not everyone gets. You can take that from me, the girl who is still cleaning up the mess in her kitchen 4 days later after her failed buckeye peanut-butter balls. If you are not a rockstar in the kitchen, welcome to the club! It doesn’t make you less of a person or less of a wife or mother. Be confident in your strengths and manage your weaknesses.
God made us different so we would need each other!