I call this success

We live in a culture that worships and celebrates success. We chase after success like it is the only thing that matters at times. We want success in every aspect of our lives and sometimes we are willing to do anything to have it.

We study hard to get A’s--that’s success.

We work hard in our careers to obtain raises, promotions and accolades—that’s success.

We find a good mate, get married and have children—that’s also success.

We set goals and achieve goals, because that too is success.

We can become obsessed with success. 

But, not just any kind of success, no we strive for the success that we can measure, it must be tangible.

Our culture craves success that is measurable. We like to see the progress and we want to be able to size it up to determine if it is a success or fail.  That just may be the reason why losing weight in the early stages is so hard to commit to because all the sweat and hard-work are not measurable for weeks later.

A few years ago, I by the American culture definition could be considered to be pretty successful. I have a Bachelor’s degree, I had a nice job, owned a business, a home and two cars. We belonged to a great church, had great friends and were able to pay all our bills with extra money left over for fun.  We had measurable success and it felt great. Then, we decided we wanted to grow our family by having our first child. We got pregnant with our son, I decided to stay home and I gradually found myself searching for measurable success. So, when I decided to trade in my research papers and grad school exams for baby wipes and nursing bras, I struggled with measuring my success. Many things that I had used to define my success were no longer apart of my life. I struggled with defining my worth as a woman, I knew there was more  to me than being a wife and mother, but was I still successful?  How could I define success?

I didn't receive any fancy letters behind my name after weaning my, at the time, 13 month old son from breast-feeding, although with the experience we had,  I surely thought I deserved an award.  I never received any special recognition for being able to carry a very heavy-sleeping three year old boy in one arm and a chunky 5-month old baby girl in a car seat at the same time up two flights of stairs.  No, I don’t have a degree in bottom wiping with a minor in diaper changing in the car. I don’t receive a raise every year for good performance, showing up on time, and for never taking a sick day. I don’t get any promotions for discovering new ways to feed my family healthy-wholesome, yet delicious meals.  I certainly don’t get a bonus for spending quality time with my children by singing worship songs or reading funny books.

As a full-time stay at home wife and mother of two beautiful children, I stay up late and  sometimes get-up through the night to care for my little ones—no overtime pay here. So, how exactly do I measure this success? How do I determine if what I do is of any value? I struggled with this for a while, because it is very easy to feel like our daily activities as mothers, whether we stay home, work from home, work full-time or part-time outside the home, do not measure up to anything  worthy of the name: success.  Are we no longer successful? I think we know the answer  to that, but just in case you're wondering: heck ya! We are extremely successful! But just how do we measure our success in a world that craves tangible and measurable results? How do you measure a giggly-happy baby or a playful-curious preschooler?

We certainly don't do it in any conventional method.

We measure our success by the bond and connection we have with our families. Do we truly show love and support to one another? Do we look forward to spending time together? We measure our success by our children being able to have confidence in knowing that they are loved. We do not measure our success by our children’s misbehavior—they aren’t perfect and it isn’t our job to create perfect human beings. Instead, we measure our success by the satisfaction we get from knowing we are doing our best and that our best is good enough.

 If I never obtain my Master’s degree, but instead I am able to be fully committed to being a woman of faith and  loving & caring for my family and community, then I measure that as success. I have realized that I don’t need a high-paying job, a closet loaded with clothes & shoes, a mansion, luxury cars, and fancy letters behind my name to be successful. And while all of those things can be great, but for me they do not define my success. For me, living a life that is pleasing to God is what I define as success. So, however that may look for you is not necessarily how it will look for anyone else, but as long as we are chasing after God and not chasing after things or people, then we can be extremely successful.

My success for today:  Knowing that when I prayed for my friends in our bible study that I could really feel the presence of the Holy Spirit.  And being able to type with one hand while nursing my daughter with the other, talk about multi-tasking. (this was written 5 months ago)