charmed

I believe I've spoken before of the feeling that those around me lead a charmed life while I struggle to stay afloat in the midst of the chaos that surrounds me.  Then again, I don't feel like digging through archives so I may have simply thought those things and not voiced them.  (Either way, I bring you today's post...."charmed".)

I do feel that way at times.  I have often looked around me at the homes in better order, the moms with more energy, the children without unusual needs, the spiritual lives apparently driving on the right side of the road, and wondered how it was I always end up feeling like a clumsy fool in the face of real life.

And so life would wend its way onward, one small moment at time, me working intensely to be thankful for the amazingness I know is mine -- a marriage I believe to be among the best of what I've ever seen (so very far from perfect -- just wonderful where it is), kids full of forgiveness for my shortcomings, opportunities to follow the path I feel led in so many ways (homeschool to name just one).  That's me working not to feel that everyone's life is better than mine.

Then occasionally I see a little peak into someone else's world and I know with sudden clarity that their world is not charmed, either.  Or the next person.  Or the next.

I had a month full of insights like this.  Like dominoes falling, my perceptions of the charmed life went down.  Mine is not charmed, yours is not charmed.  It's just life in many colors, with many struggles, and many opportunities for the grace of God to be sought and received.