So I should be folding laundry right now.  But I’m tired…like, legitimately tired (as opposed to most days, when I’m tired for no good reason at all).  It’s legitimate because we got a delivery of construction material delivered and dropped on our driveway and front sidewalk yesterday.

The exact numbers were:

30 sheets of 5/8″ plywood

24 sheets of 1/2″ plywood

72 2×6″ x 8′ boards

24 2×6″ x 10′ boards

63 2×8″ x 14′ boards

72 2×8″ x 8′ boards

12 2×8″ x 10′ boards

4 2×8″ x 12′ boards

26 5/8″ 4×10 sheets of drywall

All of it had to come in the house.  Tim brought all of the drywall and thicker plywood in by himself (one sheet of that drywall weighs 88 lbs(!)…not to mention how insanely awkward it is to carry a 4’x10′ sheet of anything by yourself).  He also pitched in with a few of the other boards here and there, single-handedly got all of the 10′ 2×6’s from the front hall into the attic (and with just a little help from me got the 14′ 2×8’s into the back of the second story), but the kids and I did the rest.  Okay, so I know it doesn’t seem like I did much compared to what Tim did (I think he, literally, did a ton more work than me, at least)…but a solid three hours of fairly heavy lifting was much more of a workout than I have been used to lately, so now I’m sitting.

To be honest, I really enjoyed the work.  I like to say that I was built to be a pack-mule, and yesterday just confirmed that.  ‘Cause I really can’t stand exercise that doesn’t have a point.  I get bored super-easily.  But yesterday…even though I was exhausted early on…I was able to push myself because it was accomplishing something.

Plus, I think the truth is that I was made for heavy-lifting.  I bemoan my size a lot (much to my husband’s annoyance).  I get frustrated that even if I were in great shape, it’s not possible for me to be smaller than a size 10 .  I get mad at God for not making me small and feminine and graceful (sounds petty, but it’s completely true).  But if I were all those things that I often wish I could be, I wouldn’t be as much the helper that my husband needs and values.  I know that my husband was thankful yesterday that he didn’t have to move all of that wood by himself.  I know that he was thankful that he didn’t have to worry about me being too fragile.  I know that he was thankful that I could lift the 40 lb boards from the first floor up to him in the second floor, fifty times over.  My husband is glad that I’m “sturdy” even if it means I’m not what the world considers feminine.

And this is a line of reasoning that plays out in a dozen different ways most days.  Who I am is not who I want to be, because who I am is not who someone else says I should be, but who I am is who God made me to be and there is a reason for me being the way I am.  It happens with homeschooling my kids.  It happens with keeping my home.  It happens with the food I make and the furniture I buy and the way I communicate and the fact that I don’t walk around with a smile on my face all day.

The world and the Church and articles I read and people I talk to can all have very definitive ideas of what is right and wrong in so many areas.  And I am susceptible to believing it all.  I really am.  I want a standard.  I think everybody wants a standard.  But we enter damaging territory when establish any absolute standard that is something other than what we find in the Word of God.  We were created to be different in so many ways, and we were created to be absolute in relatively few.  It’s not a new lesson for me, but it’s one that is constantly under attack, so I need reminders. 

I can be who He made me and trust that He can use it for His glory.

As hard as it is to walk out, there is freedom and a simplicity in that truth.