I'd love to say that I don't often feel like I've come up short as a mom, wife, or friend, but it seems like daily I turn around and SOMEHOW I've let someone down....

Forms filled out for graduation, gown and announcements ordered, check written, but "Where's the special envelope that was with the order form, Mom?" is the "thank you" of the morning....

Supplies purchased, ideas shared, poster completed for school project, but then the last-minute question comes, "Can you help me make a model real quick, Mom?" when there's no time left to do one more thing.......

Dishes done, coffee made, laundry started, but then I lose my cool because the morning has started with so many ugly emotions........

Like good ole' Charlie Brown, the sense of measuring up seems like an allusive dream.

I'm having a Charlie Brown - kind-of morning.

I watch this video and connect on so many levels........

But then I remember who I'm trying to please......REALLY...and I have to smile!

I remember that in the end my audience is very small.

The One who searches my heart, even when its ugly, still chooses to love me with His perfect love that, unlike Lucy's, "keeps no record (or slideshow or instant replays) of my wrongs." (I Cor. 13)

I think of Jesus' words to the disciples, and I grin imagining what Jesus might have said if the Peanuts' characters would have been around during His time on earth,

"In this world you will have Lucys.......

But take heart! I have overcome the world."

I read Theodore Roosevelt's words from a speech he gave in 1910 entitled, '"The Man in the Arena," and I realize that it is not about victory in this world as much as it is about TRYING......and I smile again. I will never be the perfect mom, wife, or friend. I will continue to come up short....misplacing envelopes, not being able to pull together last-minute requests, losing my cool, and the list goes on and on.....but I will die trying to be the best person I could be. And I hope that those who love me will stand over my grave and remember that, yes, I wasn't perfect, but I tried.

I'll close with Mr. Roosevelt's famous words........

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Daring Greatly,