Having it all together...

So, you know those people you look at and you say, "Wow, they have it all together!"  They have clean large homes, well landscaped lawns, flawless skin, always rocking a size 4 in their name brand clothes, drives a clean nice car, their children are beautiful in their smocked monogrammed clothes, and their Christmas Card just brings tears to their eyes because it is so cute.  Wow, I am exhausted listing these things.  Well, y'all let me just tell you this.  This is my struggle.  I want to have it all together.  I want it to seem like Clint and I are picture perfect.  But, wow that is exhausting and will NEVER happen.  We do not have it all together, and will never have it all together.

So, this past Christmas I wanted SO bad to send a picture perfect Christmas Card and I stressed so much over making these cards, paying for these cards, addressing the envelopes in some fancy calligraphy, getting these pictures made... oh Christmas Cards!  I love receiving them during this marvelous season!  There is something about them! Please, don't get me wrong I LOVE Christmas Cards.  They are still taped to our kitchen door!  I look at them everyday!  But, I just stressed and got mad and kinda crazy to be honest over these cards.  I asked myself, "Mary, why do you want to send this piece of paper so bad?"  Then I realized the root of it all, I wanted people to see Clint, Reynolds, and me and to say, "Wow, look at that couple and family... they have it all together." I wanted it SO bad.  But, y'all the most freeing thing happened.... I didn't send them.  I realized the freedom that came from not sending these.  It doesn't matter... I will never have it all together, so why do I strive so hard to make it seem like I do.  So, y'all I do not have it all together.  I praise Jesus that he takes broken things and makes them beautiful in His time and in His way.  And it isn't about what this world offers, but what the Lord gives.  All these things I strive after are from the world, so that the world would think I had it going on.

So, here is the truth.. The Lord doesn't give the way the world does, he will meet EVERY need and he will equip us with everything. Give him the glory because he is the one to give the joy, not what we have or what we look like.

Psalm 30:11, "You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy."

John 14:27
"Peace I leave you; my peace I give you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."

Philipians 4:19
"And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus!"

Hebrews 13:20-21
"May the God of Peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he word in us what is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ, to him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen."



So, you want to see those pictures we had taken by the incredible Lindsay Corrigan (Check out her blog: 311 Photography)
Here are a few...

So, there you have it!  Merry Christmas from the Rouse House.