Have you ever dreamed of doing something great? How do you define great? Is your great and my great on completely different scales? Is there even a scale? Cause I know that sometimes making it to the bathroom on your own can be an accomplishment when certain circumstances are considered. Having a positive outlook on life and a grateful heart in the middle of a long tumultuous period can be true greatness. What’s yours?
I have family members that grew up and are growing up in foster care and it grieves my heart. I often think about what role our family should play in that. It’s so easy to judge a parent to gives up their child or has their children taken away but when you realize what they went through… what got them where they are… it makes more sense.
In all of the brokenness in the world how we define what our own great achievements should be is completely relative to our starting points and the mountains we have to climb, both internal and external. Comparing to one another is never apples to apples. The mom next to me who seems to have it all together could be crying herself to sleep every night. The dad who’s barely making it to pick up his kid on the weekend could be so down on himself he doesn’t know how to give and fears he’ll ruin his kid by being in his life.
A parent breaking the cycle of poverty and providing for their family is greatness. Greatness as defined, by me, the non-expert expert, is maximizing your current potential.
My daughter is super competitive. She’s basically me but a little more stoic in nature. She’s fierce and soft. She’s justice and compassion. She’s broken for the broken. However, her competitive nature draws her into the comparison trap nearly every day of her life. She hates that her birthday is the last one of the year instead of first. She hates that she’s the second born and not the first. She’s not the absolute fastest or strongest. So when she finds something she’s better at than her older brother she puts all her efforts into it. On the flip side if she thinks she’s going to fail she preemptively quits, sabotages even. She’s even stooped to copying.
We often talk about the misery of comparison. I tell her things like “you’re going to have a miserable life if you spend it comparing yourself to everyone else.” Or, “the only person you have to beat is the Peyton you were yesterday.” “You can’t be best at everything, you can only strive to be the best YOU.” No matter how hard she tries she won’t become the first born. It’s done. It already happened. Set in stone.
So I ask again… what’s your great? What’s your “I refuse to settle?” What’s your “I could never do that” turned into “I totally do that?” I, like Peyton, have sabotaged my own efforts many times before. I’ve quit because failure seemed too painful to consider… but more painful than failure… is regret.
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About The Author
Wendy is a stay at home mom of four tiny humans ranging from ages one to nine and the wife of a former U.S. Army Staff Sergeant. In addition to music, Wendy, homeschools, teaches at her kids’ homeschooling co-op, volunteers with a ministry called SOZO that helps people overcome unhealthy habits, hang-ups and addictions and aspires, with her husband, to build a self-sustaining homestead.
She has always filled journals with poetry but nearly moments after learning her first three guitar chords she was writing songs. Her passions are two-fold. Write music that’s relatable and connect with the broken or downtrodden. She just plain loves people.
Having overcome deep brokenness herself she has a heart for those struggling to get out of unhealthy patterns and discover all the greatness that’s hidden underneath. She’s equipped with many power tools that she often shares in her writing but it’s important to know that all power tools need a source of power to function properly. For Wendy that source is God.
Wendy is an acoustic rock singer-songwriter with inspiring lyrics, soothing delivery, and intricate guitar. Her delicate truthfulness is known to hug the soul while articulating even the most difficult of topics. Her music has been called relatable and even healing.
