(Originally written for a talk given to a local moms’ ministry, fall 2017.)

A few Thanksgivings into being married I decided that I wanted to host at our little place in Colorado. I invited family and friends over to our house for dinner, planned the menu, cleaned the house from top to bottom, lit some candles, turned on music, the works. But here’s how crazy it got.

After going room to room meticulously vacuuming every inch of carpet before my guests arrive, I delicately hose the edges, then I go back again room to room, with socks on, and glide over the carpet with my feet, smoothing and erasing the vacuum lines, which may have taken longer than the actual vacuuming. I want you to see clean carpet, but I don’t want you to think I spent hours before you came over vacuuming my rug, because THAT would be crazy, right? Only crazy people vacuum right before their guests arrive.

Letting your guests know the effort you put into their coming? That’s just bad hospitality. I want you to see perfection without effort, like my house just unfolded out of a pop-up book, ready to go. (It’s like the “no-makeup makeup” look: spend more time on your face to make it look like you rolled out of bed looking like a goddess.)

I made my famous mashed potatoes and the dishes, but my crowning moment would be my very first turkey. At the time I worked for a natural foods store and spent half my life savings on a free-range, organic, hormone-free, house-trained, humanely de-feathered turkey fit for 20 people. I brined, basted, buttered, marinated, massaged. I was practically this turkey’s therapist for the week leading up to Thanksgiving. And what do you know, our dinner table inevitably became that scene from Christmas Vacation where everyone’s gathering around the turkey, you go to cut it, the skin splits (tzzz) and a puff of smoke comes out and everyone gnaws on the turkey like desperate animals in the wild (which is where I wanted to be at this point, in a cave somewhere, in denial...because despite my effort, my turkey was like every other turkey on Thanksgiving.

What did I do wrong? I had the perfect formula, spent extra money, a week prepping this stupid turkey. I fell short and then I let this imperfection poison the rest of the day. I spent it apologizing and muttering non-Thanksgiving-appropriate words. I was no good to anyone, though everyone had moved on and was having fun without me. Instead of slowing down to enjoy the day, I tried mentally maneuvering around it, looking at the situation a number of different ways to both chastise myself and to excuse myself. I didn’t get very far but I wasted a day that was meant to be a gift.

As silly as the story is, it illuminates a somewhat ongoing belief in my heart. If I have the perfect plan, if I’m always a little ahead of everyone else, if I’m impressive, if I take care of you before you take care of me, if I hurry more than everyone else, that the approval of others will finally convince me to approve of myself...convince me of a little something I’d always believed: that I’m ALMOST good enough, but not quite. But I’m here to deliver the bad news: all this fussing hasn’t worked. On this mess of a hamster wheel, the horizon doesn’t change all that much.

Sometimes God leads you to share something you’re right in the middle of learning, which can be incredibly uncomfortable. Sometimes it requires saying, HEY, not only am I NOT on the other side, I don’t know there IS another side, but I’m learning to be okay with that, and inviting you to walk with me through it.

It’s easy to send a quick encouragement to a few hundred friends on social media. We like empowerment, lessons on rising up to meet the challenge. A pot of coffee a day keeps the lazy away—drink more and get ‘er done! We can do that—we’re fluent in that language. We can always try harder. The issue is that more effort is not really the best match for reality. “Try harder” may have worked with that awful long jump in junior high. What about my friend and her baby boy just diagnosed with cancer? You don’t talk to those people and say drink more coffee and get ‘er done because God is on your side. What about divorce? What about your parent or child who’s struggling with addiction (or what if it’s you)? What about plain old fatigue? What about failure?

I know I’m a true beginner when I think I can put off being an encouragement or helping someone until I’m on the “other side” of a tough season or lesson of my own. Wanting to present this perfectly wrapped package “here! Here’s what I’ve learned. Open it, apply it, and you’ll be good.” In that false belief we forget we’re simply invited to BE.