The Facade of a “Perfect Life”

Life is hard. There’s no way around it! I look at a thousand and one posts on Facebook almost daily and think: Life must be perfect for them. They always “seem” happy. But are they? Isn’t thinking that preposterous? I absolutely think it is! NO ONE has a perfect life. (As a general rule, we just want everyone to think we do). Most of us only post our happy pictures on Facebook. We don’t want to push people away or have them think less of us. It’s hard to be authentic and real. But what would happen if we choose to be a little more authentic and real and post something we are going through that is less than pretty? I think people would immediately feel less lonely. And they’d be comforted knowing they’re not the only one going through the trial that they are…

When I need to I ask for prayer support, I do! My prayer warriors rally fast. In fact, I just asked for prayer for a situation we got hit with a couple of days ago. Sixty-Two people hit the floor on their knees and not only am I comforted, I feel a peace I wasn’t feeling before.

We’ve all seen the meme, “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be Kind. Always.” It’s true. And it’s true for EVERYONE no matter what they present on Facebook or any other social media site.

We live in Chandler, Arizona on a lake front property. It’s a beautiful, prestigious community with fountains on every other corner, mounds of flowers planted at many entrances of housing areas, large pots of flowers in front of businesses, beautiful flowering trees, palm trees, multiple fruit trees and manmade lakes every where. Husband Gary worked at Intel nineteen years that we lived in New Mexico but we lived there TWENTY-THREE years. We felt stuck. Almost like we’d never be able to move on and better ourselves any where. Our son recently brought to our attention how New Mexico, being called the “Land of Enchantment” was relabeled the “Land of Entrapment.” I wonder now if that stuck feeling we felt had anything to do with that? Could have been. I’m just glad we BROKE FREE!

Anyway, when we finally felt it was time to leave our home of twenty-three years, we got our home there ready to put on the market. We sold it in two days. The first sale fell through due to a financing issue and the second sale was a go. Everything happened like clockwork. The movers came, packed up our belongings and drove them to a storage unit here in Phoenix, while we moved into an apartment on a temporary lease. While we were on our way here, our van broke down so we got a motel. Gary got a call in the motel for an interview for his current job. We had a conference scheduled in Anchorage, Alaska for the non-profit we run that we had to attend, so he agreed to start after the two week conference. And that he did.

Many of the twenty-three years we lived in New Mexico was a literal nightmare. While we had some good memories and made some beautiful friends, our lives were littered with heartache and pain. We KNEW we needed a whole NEW BEGINNING. We’ve been here Chandler, AZ seven years, and our time here has been glorious in many ways, albeit not perfect… Still living here is a night and day difference between the two states. I post all of my happy pictures on Facebook because they bring my heart pure JOY. But to be honest, I’m sure there are multiple people that see them and “think” we have a “perfect” life. And we absolutely don’t. We are STILL fighting battles people know nothing about just like the moral majority. I’ve learned to be very careful who I share what with for multiple reasons but I do share with those I can trust. Though we have support through our family and long time friends, there are always those few that are jealous and insecure and not truly for us. It might be that some of these people don’t know that our lives aren’t perfect.

Think about all of this the next time you may get the mistaken idea ANYONE has a perfect life. It’s simply NOT TRUE!

You aren’t the odd man out. YOU ARE PERFECTLY NORMAL IN EVERY WAY. You have problems like the rest of us. And in the big scope of life, what doesn’t kill us makes a STRONGER. You can take that to the bank!