Dying to self once again...

About a week ago, one of the director's of our adoption agency, Generations, emailed and asked me to write a one page article about our adoption journey thus far. She wanted to include a section on international adoption to their mostly domestic adoption quarterly newsletter. She also requested a family picture to go along with the article. I thought...Oh great...we have no good family pictures. I emailed her back and said I would try to get my mother to take a picture of us this upcoming weekend while we are still in Birmingham. How hard can it be to get a good family picture? I should already have a family picture...but it always seems like an impossible task. We don't do professional photography because it is too expensive and there is rarely someone around to take our family picture....or I forget to think about it..or the kids are having a break down. But, O.K...Sunday morning we can do this. Once again...how hard can it be?

Sunday morning we all got up too late and my mother had to be at church early, so she was not around to take the picture before church. So...ok its ok...we can just take one after church. Besides this is the only time I have someone around to take this? Right? After church my sister, my mother, and all of us went to Tzatzikis.( my dad was out of town on a business trip). It was a rushed meal with the kids breaking down from lack of sleep and being off their normal schedule for the past week, but I was determined to get a family picture. We never have someone to take this of us and we look somewhat decent...so lets do it. I can tell my husband is thinking this is not a good idea and its not going to go over well. But...I still asked my mom to do it...my goodness... I deserve to get this family picture...everyone else I know has good family pictures on their blogs and Christmas cards....we can't be the one family that does not have a good family picture...So we go outside and sit in chairs because my husband is a foot taller than me and the pictures don't ever look good with us standing because his head always gets cut off. The minuted we sit down, Mary Taylor and Henry start whining and screaming... My mother and sister are trying to get their attention...and for a second they do...but then the fits start again. I continue to try to get them to behave and take the picture... I am getting furious with them not cooperating and I definitely loose my cool and keep trying to make it work. Dee is getting mad...but also trying to make it work for me, I think?..but later on I realized he was stressed and angry at the way I was handling this situation. We stop after about four minutes of this craziness and I stomped off to the car in frustration of how "my much deserved perfect family picture" did not happen the way I wanted it to." Little did I know how much it affected everyone else involved. My poor kids. About four minutes later when Dee would not talk to me in the car...the Holy Spirit revealed to me my sin: 

You have made the "perfect family picture" an idol and you are bound to it. You will do anything to get it at all costs running over everyone involved. You are not trusting me that I will provide for you in this area of your life. You are miserable in your efforts. Taking this into your own hands didn't help anyway. I AM where you can find rest for your soul.

Wow...ouch...this really hit me hard. After I got back to the house... my mother confronted me about this issue too. She said, "You have made this an idol Melissa. If God wants you to have 'the perfect family picture'...he will make it happen." This was hard to hear from her, but I needed to hear it. She was so right. If God wants me to have "the perfect family picture," then he will provide a way for that to happen. "What is 'perfect' anyway?" my sister says to me later that day. What I am trying to attain from "the perfect family picture"? Why do I feel like I need this?

Well, my whole life I have struggled with Fear of Man, wanting to live up to everyone's expectations of me. I put a lot of pressure on myself. I have put my identity in this most of my life. When it comes down to it, I do not want to be different than the status quo, I want to be loved and accepted, but not my God, by people. Everyone I know has great family pictures, so I have to be like everyone else or they will think I am weird. What's wrong with my family? What am I doing wrong? I have to make this happen at all costs. If I don't, I will not fulfill people's expectations of me. It is funny, God has been working in my life in this specific area for a long time and I have seen so much victory and freedom in the past couple of years...I don't force my kids to take pictures..I just try to get them doing real life things. I guess I was just holding on to this one thing...So once again...I need to die to self, trust God...which is actually very freeing. What is going to happen if I don't have "the perfect family picture"? 1. nothing 2. having a "real life family picture" allows others to feel freedom to do the same. 


An idol is anything that you put more energy and effort into than God...you know something is an idol when you run over everyone to get what you want, it is something you put your security and significance in more than God. You resort back to orphan tendencies and you forget that your identity is in Christ, not yourself and this world. Idols are bondage. We were not designed to love THINGS above God. God made us for himself. It is only there that we find rest for our souls.

 "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it."

Luke 9:23-24 

Would you like to see our "real life family pictures"? 

These tell the story of my sin...but also the story of HOPE. God is making me new and he is redeeming me. What a reason to rejoice! And these pictures really aren't that bad...

I am so glad that "Christianity is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints."~Tim Keller (Reason for God)