The Hole in the Middle

I celebrated another birthday this week. NOT a BIG birthday but a birthday none the less.
Sunday we spent the day with my folks and my mom made a delicious cake, that was my great grandmother's recipe. SO YUMMY!!
After lunch we headed out to their pool, leaving the cake/candle festivities until later in the day.
A couple hours into swimming one of my boys declared he was hungry and heading in for a snack. A few minutes later he was back, saying he'd cut the cake for everyone and had a piece himself. That was really the last I'd thought about it until later that evening when the singing commenced and there among the candlelight was a hole right in the middle of the cake.
My boy was quite pleased with the fact that he'd sliced the cake for everyone and when I asked where he gotten his piece, he said the middle one because that's the best!
Just tickled me to no end. And as I lay in bed later that night reflecting on the day, I had to stop and thank Jesus. He has brought me so far! You see there was a time when a hole-I mean HOLE in the middle of the cake would have made me crazy.
With a capital C.
I like things to be 'perfect'. Or at least act like they are.
Or I used to, I've come along way (thank you JESUS-it's ONLY BECAUSE OF YOU!)

There are many reasons why-the atmosphere in the school/church I grew up. The yearning to be enough DO enough. But it never was.

Square peg in the round hole. Striving but never arriving, then giving up. And if you can't be perfectly perfect, you can be perfectly bad. Either choice makes a huge mess and is hard to untangle.

It has been a long journey to realize that who I am in Christ is enough. There doesn't need to be more. I don't need to pretend there is more. Others can chose to accept me and the flaws ( there are many)because trying to pretend that there isn't a hole in the middle of the cake is entirely to difficult!
Sometimes the dishes are in the sink, the kids (and mom) are cranky and there is a hole right in the middle of the cake.
Not perfect. NEVER perfect. But willing. Willing to be used in the beautiful mess that is me and my life.Not looking around at others who I 'think' are perfect and have it all together. Thinking their life is much easier because of what appears to be perfect on the outside. I am certain there is a hole in the middle of their cake too! Let's face it we all have one. Because I am so convinced that by Christ using the broken, weak messes that we are He shines through us more brightly.
When we pretend to have it all together we (and by we I mean ME) take the glory from Him and place it on ourselves (MYself).

Not perfect, never perfect. But willing and ready.

Now let's go get some cake!