SkyMoms > Parenting Tips
12/19/19

A transparent post in Two Christmas Pictures... - Lisa Tyson

The first picture is almost perfect. Only thing missing is a fire in the fire place and this could be on a holiday card. Tree is sparkling. Stockings hung. No mess. No clutter. This picture looks like a Silent Night where “all is calm and all is bright.” Except it isn’t real. It’s FB real. Edited and posted just the way I want it....

Then there is the second picture. Same room. Same view. Same 5 minute span of time. But in this picture what you can see is an unedited version of my reality. Laundry is on the couch. Television is on. Briefcase and purse on the counter top and laptop on the ottoman. Dogs asleep on the couch. Kids upstairs “studying.” Jim at work because the Christmas program is more than just the choir and performers. There is a whole crew of people you will never see on a stage or read about in a program that make this event (and everything else in a church) happen.

Why did I post this? Because I want real life to be the first picture. But it’s not, it’s messy. And busy. And exhausting. People have jobs, kids, briefcases, and laundry. Life is unfiltered and unedited. We like to show the “pretty” and that’s okay! It’s also okay to say, “this is it—my life unedited.” Not that you pour out all your crazy on social media. What you do is accept the fact that almost every “perfect picture” is a filtered view of the reality going in around it. Don’t measure your actual life against someone else’s edited picture.

So, sweet friends waiting for Christmas to be magically merry and bright, take a breath. Jesus didn’t come to earth to save the “filtered and edited.” He came to meet us right where we are—laundry on the couch and all. Don’t forget while breathtaking angels were singing their glorious hallelujahs creating a picture perfect scene, Mary was in an old barn surrounded by dirt and animals after riding a donkey all day giving birth to a Baby on a pile of hay. Talk about unfiltered....the awesome reality is that it wasn’t the picture perfect angels who changed the world that night. It was the Baby born in a barn that we might have (unfiltered) abundant life.
 
Written By Lisa Tyson