Have It All

Only simpletons believe everything they are told! The prudent carefully consider their steps. Proverbs 14:15

For my book 10 Best Decisions a Woman Can Make, I asked women to tell me their description of a woman who “had it all!” These are my favorites:

• “She is never running late or misplacing anything.” Well, I can never be a woman who has it all then because there are days I hunt for car keys, lost cleats, the pancake spatula, and sometimes my kids or husband!
• “She’s unwrinkled.” This one knocks all of us who are over forty right out of the running.
• “Perfect figure.” Okay, this one’s tough because it keeps changing! Marilyn Monroe wore a size sixteen, and I think the supermodels today shop in the toddler section.
• “Talented, gorgeous, wealthy, easy life, no job, mother of three well-adjusted kids.” This one is a classic example of what we do to ourselves all the time—contradict our values. If I was talented and gorgeous with an easy life of wealth and I didn’t work for the money, would I really have three well-adjusted kids? (And why three kids?) And if I were so wonderfully talented, wouldn’t I want to use it in some way?
• “She’s on top of the world. Everything always goes in her favor. Never fails.” Never??? Some of the women I have met, interviewed, or read about in history have had lives filled with failures and setbacks. Often those very failures have become part of the fiber that has formed them into a woman God can use in a significant way.
• “Someone who has a maid that someone else pays for!”^a This is my all-time favorite description of a woman who has it all!

Feeling the pressure to have it all? Reality check: Life is a series of adjustments.