Did you buy the lie too?

As little girls, teens, young women, and now moms, we have been fed the lie that it's normal to have a perfect house, perfect husband, perfect figure, perfect children, perfect career, i.e., a perfect life. Many of those messages were passed on to us through the various avenues of the media. In her book Choices, Mary Farrar uncovers the myths society has fed us. A stunned college-age girl, after hearing Farrar speak about the deceptive expectations we have developed about life, told Mary:

"You said, 'No one can have it all.' You said the idea that 'you can have it all' is a lie. I've been told all my life that I can have it all. I've lived my whole life on that philosophy. Everything I've done, every decision I've made has been to that end. And I've worked so hard--just to make it happen!"

Mary concluded, "A good lie wraps itself around just enough truth to draw its listeners in."* A lot of good lies are wrapped around media messages. We have been drawn in, moms. It's up to us to accept the truth: We cannot have it all. If you find yourself striving to have it all, trying to live up to what the media says is "normal," you're probably miserable, sorely disappointed, and completely discontented with the life God has given you. A thankful heart is rarely a discontented one. If you focus on what you don't have rather than the blessings that are yours, you will be unhappy. But if you make yourself dwell on what you are thankful for, you will find contentment.

Philippians 4:8 gives us courage to go against the grain of society and be intentional about what we allow into our minds. Rather than filling our minds with what the world offers, Paul says, "You'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracous--the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly....God who makes everything work together, will work you into His most excellent harmonies" (Philippians 4:8-9 The Message).

Lord,
You have given us incredible minds, minds that rememer what we see, so help us to watch the good stuff and not the bad. Help us to think before we thoughtlessly spend time or money on things that won't satisfy in the long run. Help us to evaluate what the media offers and to see it for what it is. In Jesus' Name. Amen.


from Sharon and Laurie's book Mom...and Loving It! available at our website click here.
* Mary Farrar, Choices (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 1994), 74, 76.