Get Real

It is an honor to receive an honest reply. Proverbs 24:26

It’s hard to be real. We would much prefer that our success be rehearsed, scripted, and airbrushed. I want my sons to say just the right thing when introduced to important people, and I’d love to always sound profound and quotable. No one really likes to look or feel stupid. I wish every day was a good hair day and that I could keep the wisdom I have at forty but have the body I had at twenty. Get real!

I force myself to be real. I do open the front door when the doorbell rings even if the boys have just walked out with friends and forgotten to pick up the fast-food bags off the living-room table. I go to the grocery store without makeup, knowing full well that I might see people I know. I admit mistakes, flaws, foibles, and fears. Why?

It’s exhausting to try to be perfect! It’s too much work to always wonder what everyone’s thinking about me. I love what Patsy Clairmont says: “We’d worry less about what people thought of us if we realized how very little they do!”

In the Old Testament one of the definitions for honest is “straightforward.” I love that picture because it means I am not going out of my way to present myself as something I am not.

Living straightforwardly saves time, energy, and worry. Once, while working on a writing deadline, I walked out of my home office and into a living room that was a wreck. It was summer, and the guys had everything they owned out! I thought, What would my readers think if they saw my house right now? Then I thought, They’d think I was a real mom with a real deadline and a real life—get over it, Pam!