Martha The Dog, A Bit In Us All?

Martha the dog can speak because she eats alphabet soup. One day, one of her human family members is reading a book to the baby about a Dalmatian fire dog who is brave, important, and saves the day. Martha starts  fantasizing about being a brave firehouse dog. She especially dreams of sliding down the firemen's pole. Despite her human friend's attempt, "But Martha..." at explaining Martha's fantasy is not anything like reality, Martha insists she will become a fire dog. She goes to the fire station and the firemen agree to have her as their dog even though she isn't a Dalmatian. They start to show her around the place but she is very eager to see the pole. When she finally sees the pole she is scared! What a shock. In her fantasy sliding down the pole was so much fun. She goes home to practice her fire-dog skills. First she tries to get dressed in fire gear but can't do it. Then she attempts to climb a ladder, for surely this is a very important skill for her to have. But  she can't climb a ladder either! Finally, she practices holding a water hose but she fails miserably. She simples pokes holes in the hose and water sprayers everyone! She hangs her head, totally miserable and feeling like a failure. She realizes she can't do this. She thinks she is no good and simply can't be a fire dog. She goes to the fire house and tells them all her down falls and resigns. But the firemen look at her and say, "but Martha, fire dogs don't do any of those things!" She then went on to learn that her real value as a fire dog was not in climbing ladders or holding a hose or wearing special clothes but was actually in her ability to smell and locate fires.

This children's story got me to thinking. How often are we like Martha the dog? In some way we get a picture in our head of what or who we should be. These messages often are rather negative or not realistic and very often come from society. We hold onto to these expectations and beliefs even when our trusted love ones says "but Martha..." We believe we should be skinny, fit, flirtatious, smart but not too smart or geeky, we should have it all, be it all, and do what ever it takes to get us there. Some of the fantasies we hold are not bad or wrong but are simply unrealistic and warped in our minds or stem from a misunderstanding our true selves. We think we should have the perfect food storage, 100% visiting teaching every month, never yell at our kids, be amazing cooks, be perfect wives, and fabulous housekeepers. Satan or society has a way of making even great qualities and great aspirations to become stumbling blocks. We want to be good, we want to do the right things, but we are constantly falling short and can't live up to our high expectations of our selves. The result? We are discouraged and stunted. Perhaps we decide to give up, like Martha the dog, and in the process we never develop our real talent or realize our real beauty as an individual and as a daughter of God.

What do we need to do? Like Martha the dog we might need to consider where we are getting our messages from. Are we getting our mental image of our value from the world ? Martha got her fantasy based off a book and disregarded her loving friend trying to explain other wise. Martha also jumped into the fire house dog job with out really learning about the job and asking the real authorities what her role would be. How much  frustration and heartache would she have saved if she would have talked to the firemen and learned what exactly her job was! Where are we getting our messages from? Is it from God? Are we studying His words and praying to know truly what He wants from us? Or are we basing our fantasies and our expectations of ourselves from the world's voice? Are we expecting too much from ourselves and allowing fear, Satan, or perfectionism to cause great goals to become stumbling blocks? Are we willing to ask questions and look at our assumptions and stop and listen when our trusted friend (Jesus or our husband or our girlfriend, or our mom) says "but Martha...."?  

I am always amazed at how loving and patient our Heavenly Father is. He loves us so much and wants us to realize our true potential. He knows us so well and He knows all that we can be and all that we one day will be. It is Him we need to go to to completely understand what our fantasies, expectations, and goals should be. He will show us our value, our true value. It should not be the world. It should not be Satan's whisperings turning good and honorable goals and expectations into stumbling blocks. We are all God's children. He loves us and yes, no matter how far off the path we have gotten thinking we need to be a certain type of person, like Martha, we can go to Him and really learn what He wants us to be and what we should aspire too. With true knowledge from Him, with true understanding, hard work, and His grace we can be that woman He designed us to be and ignore the voices of the world.