The In-Between

I have a confession to make.

I am not a very put-together lady.

Many of my readers know me personally and are aware of this fact. However, some of you found the blog through a friend, and I just wanted to make sure I didn't have anyone fooled.

I may seem intuitive and reflective in my writing--and I very much feel that way on the inside. But on the outside, I'm much different. If you carried on a conversation with me in person, it would include a lot of sound effects (Grrr, Aaargh!, Aaahh!) and an EXCESSIVE amount of hand gestures. My words tend to get all rambly and my accent comes on really thick when I'm hurried, or agitated, or flustered. (Read: almost all the time.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there tends to be a wide space between the "Blogger Liz" that shares the afterthoughts of the things that happen to her and the "Real Life Liz" that lives through them as they are actually happening.


For example, last week Blogger Liz spent posted a silly picture on her page to encourage moms to celebrate their achievements.
Then Real Life Liz promptly caught the microwave on fire trying to make a container of Easy Mac--So yeah. Real Life Liz is a mess.

(And the thing is, Blogger Liz would really love to be able to share a story with you today about how it's okay to set the microwave on fire making a snack that is manufactured for children ages 5 and up so that Real Life Liz can feel better about it, but I don't have one.)

Just today, Real Life Liz got back from a Commissary run where she discovered she forgot her military ID at home.
(Non-military friends: that is basically the equivalent of leaving your wallet at home at the grocery store, except the nice person behind you can't cover your cart out of pity. Even if you have money, it's no good without the ID. You're basically Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman at that one store on Rodeo Dr.)

Blogger Liz doesn't really have a story for that either---
Except that maybe this is the better picture of me to share with you today.

Real Life Liz is a learner, and she learns primarily through her mistakes.
I do not sit cross-legged on the floor like some kind of guru. I do not walk around sipping tea all calmly and mindfully. I do not take any goat yoga classes. Sometimes I'm a good mom, and sometimes my kids get their foot stuck inside the frame of the sofa playing American Ninja Warrior.--(It really has been a week, y'all.)

I walk through a pile of messy days every week like a hand-talking, heavily-accented, macaroni-burning, non-ID-carrying fool.
And then every once in a while, by His grace, God gives me a little wisdom in my mess and a little time to write about it.


I realized this week that it's probably hard to truly encourage people if they don't understand that you are struggling too.
Like the lady with the super-organized, well-decorated house or the fitness junkie with the killer six-pack abs, we're all dying to show everyone our "after pictures."
But our after pictures would not be nearly as impressive if you didn't know what the "before" was first.

In fact, our "before and after pictures" can be misleading, because they never fully capture all of the messy growing that happened in between.

Houses don't go from discombobulated to picture perfect in a single frame. Fitness buffs don't earn their abs in the blink of a bathroom mirror selfie.
And Real Life Liz doesn't always get to become Blogger Liz in a perfect seven-day time table.

Sometimes she gets stuck in the messy in-between.
I live, I learn, I fall, I relearn, I grow ever so slightly, I relapse, I stand, I learn, I soar, I stumble, I learn again.
...and then occasionally I set snacks on fire.


So I guess if I have any encouragement to share with you today, it's this:
It's okay to be in the in-between part of your picture---Even when it looks a bit messy.
Good things happen in the growing.



(Also, shout out to the cashier that let me buy groceries today without my ID card. There are angels among us indeed) :)