One of my favorite writers, Glennon Melton, had a special series on her blog this week called the Sacred Scared.  She asked some of her closest friends to share their innermost insecurities: “Our sacred scared is our deepest fear- the one we hide because we think that if anyone knew about it they wouldn’t love us anymore. What we find when we share our sacred scared is that it’s the very thing we should be sharing more. Because our sacred scared is the key that unlocks our humanity. When we share it, people love us more because we’ve given them permission to love themselves more. Sharing our sacred scared is like handing a world full of messy, waiting people an invitation to show up as they are.” – See more at: http://momastery.com/blog/2014/02/18/sacred-scared/#sthash.GSiKZVHd.dpuf

In 2014, if the theme of my life is to be healthier in all ways – spiritually, physically, emotionally, financially, among many others – well, what better way to find emotional health than to share that which keeps you prisoner? I’ve certainly written about my “stuff” before on this blog – I’m no stranger to offering up my insecurities and my messiness, in life and in my kitchen:

I was so surprised that this picture received so many likes on Facebook.  A picture of my crazy, cluttered, busy kitchen – a never-ending mess of lunchboxes, dirty dishes and baby paraphernalia.  It just goes to show you I may not be alone.  What a relief! Anyway, in the vein of the Sacred Scared, here’s mine: I’m afraid I will never be content with my life. There.  I said it.  This girl, this one right here, who is blessed with a fantastic partner, my best friend – a man God clearly made for me – and three beautiful, healthy babies, lives in a constant state of “what’s next?” Man, y’all, it’s an exhausting way to live.  And it covers so many areas of my life, a big one being the career path I walked away from.  This kills me because sometimes I still can’t believe I existed so long in a world where my physical self was scrutinized and poured over at every audition.  I’m shocked that my fragile self was able to survive.  I’ll never forget – shortly after Vann and I returned from our honeymoon in Italy and I was coming down from our never-ending pasta and vino high – my agent took one long look at me from top to bottom and asked me if I had gained some “happy wedding weight” and told me I needed to lose five pounds.  And this was BEFORE my three precious girls ravaged my body into something I don’t recognize.  Now I feel so incredibly far from those days of auditioning in Chicago that it hurts.

When I was single and working I wanted to be married and have babies.  Now that I have those (wonderful) things, I miss the days of freedom and doing things that affect (and benefit) only me.  Listen, every actor who is honest with themselves would admit they have a bit of a narcissist living inside of them.  It goes with the territory: you want people to tell you how great you are, how talented you are, to applaud you, give you accolades.  You want to win that coveted role, the one every other ingénue in town is vying for.  You NEED it.  You need to know that you are great.  Motherhood doesn’t give you that feeling of success.  No one is applauding your peanut butter sandwiches – to the contrary it’s often “Oh, Mom!  I don’t like [insert child’s most bemoaned food here]”, pushing the plate away with a nose pointed upwards.  Motherhood is often a thankless job – let’s be honest, it is.  In the grand scheme of things, the big picture, the benefits and blessings of Motherhood far outweigh the day-to-day struggles – but when you’re in it, you’re in it.  Your husband will tell you you’re a great Mom, heck, you might even get to go have lunch with your girlfriends on Mother’s Day and toast cocktails and laugh that you made it another year.  But you’re not getting any stellar reviews in the Chicago Sun-Times.  No one is bringing you bouquets of flowers and taking you out for opening night drinks.  That is just truth.

This manifests itself in many different ways.  One is in my physical body.  The one I struggle to even look at in the mirror somedays.  The one where I know that no matter how many crunches I do or how clean I eat, nothing but surgery will take away that wrinkly skin that three c-sections left me with.  And you can wax poetic all the day long about where your babies came from and how romantic it is that that those stretch marks stand for something – but do they really?  And what if it doesn’t matter what they stand for?  The truth is they just make you sad when you look at them. Too much?  This is my Sacred Scared, friends.  Do you still love me even as I’m sharing the worst of the worst of my insecurities? This also manifests itself in how I spend money, my love for stuff, forever trying to fill that void and make up for the years we spent as a nomadic family, 3 high schools in as many years, no roots, forever moving, forever starting over.  I feel sad, I order something online, I feel better.  I covet homes with clean baseboards.  I hate our white oven, which should certainly be stainless steel.  We have no furniture in our front room, and sometimes it makes me angry.  I am forever chasing this dream of a better home, a better kitchen, a better backyard, a better wardrobe, a better self.

There is good news though, friends – God blessed me with a wise and loving partner, who takes me for all my faults and insecurities and loves me anyway – and he said to me recently that I needed to “stay in my own lane” – meaning, when I’m focused on myself and what I need to do to better myself and keep myself in tune with God’s voice – well, I’ll be less focused on others and the discontent I struggle so honestly with. And I’ve been thinking a TON about this.  I’m reading Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts and have thought a gratitude journal might be a fantastic exercise for me.  The more I can focus on the things I have to be thankful for – living a life of gratitude – my heart and all its wanderings will find the peace I know God so lovingly gives.  Thankfully, I’m not alone in this.  God knows my heart.  He knows I love my family desperately. But guess what?  I am an imperfect, sinful person, only brought whole by my Savior.  Truth: I will forever covet that vacation on Facebook and long for the life I once knew – until I can fill that void with the only One it was made for.  Period. It’s my hope in this new year that I can find my way through the muck and the mire of discontent to a life full of gratitude – truly, to that place in my heart that my Lord resides.