the Fishbowl

OK ... I know what you're thinking, "What's up with the whole 'fishbowl' thing?"

"Life in a fishbowl" - I've been thinking a lot lately about 'transparency', about being real, about authenticity. And then, as I was contemplating the whole blog thing, I realized that if I were to start a blog I don't want it to be a false picture of who we are ... I want it to be authentic, real, transparent, genuine ... here's our life, here we are 'in a fishbowl'.

Now, to be honest I kinda hate fish - we have one little goldfish in a little bowl - he has no name, he gets fed every once in a while, and George is the only one who ever changes his water (with a lot of resentment and bitterness I must add!). So, we watch our poor little fish eat, we watch him poop, and every morning without fail Justin gets up, comes into the kitchen and says "That fish is not dead ... yet." The fish has no choice but to be himself, a stinky, slimy little fish. I on the other hand have, over the past 35 years developed all kinds of coping mechanisms to hide who I really am - I even recently discovered Photoshop and now know how to get rid of the wrinkles, zits and clutter in my pictures so I can go down in family history as "having it all together".

Don't worry - I'm not about to air all the dirty laundry - I just want this blog to be a window into who we are, not who we want to be. Here's our fishbowl ... sometimes our water may be murky, sometimes we may need to be fed, BUT - all the time we are thankful for a God who does give us a name (unlike our poor nameless fish), for the word of God which is our food, and for forgiveness in Jesus Christ which is like the clean water in a dirty bowl.