Unconform

I am not sure if I have mentioned this or not, but we are currently in the process of sleep training our five-month-old son.  It has been a nightmare.  As first time parents, we walked into this endeavor with about as much knowledge as a shark in the rainforest.  At about 3 months he fell into a nice little schedule aside from one little problem: he was waking up at about 10:00p wide awake.  In an effort to fix this problem, we did what any sensible person would do: call their mommy... their friends, sleep experts, doctors, read books, and talk to strangers.  You know where all of this talking got us?  Nowhere.  Our inconsistency created a far worse environment for Edric and his sleeping got 10x worse than it was at the beginning.  Not only was he not sleeping at 10:00p, but now he wasn't going to sleep without a battle and was always exhausted.  That is when we put our foot down.  No more listening to other people.  No more listening to the heroic theories that worked perfectly for everyone else.  No more denying my natural instinct as a mother to appease the masses.  Enough.  He is our responsibility.  Ours.  We owned up to that.  I am happy to say he is only waking up for feedings and happy as can be with his schedule in tact.  

After this whole situation, a very evident truth emerged.  There is only so much listening to others' opinions, before it is your responsibility to decide what is going to work best for you.  We have to take ownership of our lives.  There is a definite blessing in being surrounded by wise people.  Let me be the first to tell you, we were surrounded by very wise people when sleep training.  But, when the time came to make the hard decisions and stick to them, we had to do it.  We had to decide what would work best for our son, because every child is different.  It was our job to make the decision that we felt would benefit him the best in the long run. And we did.  

It is the same with our identity.  Our self-image needs to be strengthened.  And we will always be surrounded by people who think that they can live our life better than we can.  It is part of living.  But we need to stand up and decide what is best for us, in this moment.  We have a calling to be different and stand out.  And more often than not, others can't tell you how to be different, they can only tell you how to become them.  If they knew how to do better or different they would have.  Take the opportunity to find out how to be the best person you can be.  Not because of anyone else, but because of you.  It's no one else's responsibility to tell you who to become.  It's yours.  So take ownership and decide, before someone else does.

-"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." -Romans 12:2