30 Things My Kids Should Know About Me Part 16: What Are Your 5 Greatest Accomplishments?

Wow.  This is a hard one to answer.  I mean, how do you define “greatest accomplishment”?  I’ve talked before about the fact that God defines success differently than the world does – even in terms of specifically what constitutes a successful woman.  So are we talking about biblical greatness or worldly greatness?  Life accomplishments or “work” accomplishments?  With all that in mind, I will make a tentative attempt at a list.

1. 2. 3. 4.

Ariel, Sophia, Livia…

Okay, okay, so that’s probably cheating!  We’ll just stick with:

#1-

Ariel, Sophia, Livia, Caleb.  I hope someday to be able to say that one of my greatest accomplishments is raising 4 (or more?) children to be responsible, godly adults who function well in society, contribute their gifts and strengths to the Body of Christ and the world at large, and bring glory to God.  But they’re all a little young yet to be able to claim “raising them” as an accomplishment.

However, I can say that all four of their births were great accomplishments.  Four beautiful, peaceful (but hard work!) home waterbirths – three unassisted, one midwife-assisted.  (Ariel’s, Sophia’s, and Livia’s birth stories have all been shared in the past if you want to know more.)

#2-

13 years of marriage.  Honestly, I usually don’t think about this one much. It just is what it is.  Marriage is often hard work, but it is what it is.  I’ve recently been reminded, though, that I can’t just take that point of view for granted.  In this day and age, it’s more common to just give up when things get hard, so 13 years of marriage (to the same person!)  is an accomplishment.  (It’s a greater accomplishment for my husband than for myself, I’m sure.  But still…)

#3, 4, 5…

Beyond those first two, everything else I’ve accomplished seems insignificant.  Or at least it’s all fuzzy, blending together and with no clear hierarchy.

Some of it is fairly intangible, like just the fact that I’m here.  Being a stay-at-home-mom is not an easy job, regardless (there is no bon-bon eating happening here! 😉 ).  But I’m not naturally domestic and I don’t thrive on repetition.  I’m a dreamer, a doer, a “mover and shaker,” and being home with my children is often something I find very hard.  It’s easy to feel like I should be doing “something else.” But I don’t know of any “something else” I’d rather be doing – certainly nothing with a great eternal return-on-investment!

Some of it is far more tangible.  I earned the Girl Scout Gold Award – the highest award Girl Scouting has to offer (plus about a zillion badges and such leading up to that).  In high school, I memorized 13 chapters of Matthew.  Unfortunately I haven’t kept up with it and can’t remember it now (except in having a decent familiarity with the content), but at the time I could recite it straight through from start to finish, with proper inflection, or I could quote any verse within that longer passage if provided with the reference.

I did well in school.  I did really well on my SAT’s.  I was accepted at every college I applied to.  (I was tempted to apply to an Ivy League school just to see if I’d be accepted, but that didn’t seem a prudent use of funds!)  I’ve (self-published books; I’ve had poetry printed in newsletters and mainstream books; I write this blog.

Most readers probably don’t even know that I can sing.  The nature of the internet (and, frankly, my health – which has kept me from singing as much as I’d prefer) keeps a lot of people from ever hearing me, but I used to have fellow campers ask me to sing because they just liked to listen to my voice.  (My family members probably wonder how anyone around me could ever not be hearing my voice, the way I can talk!)

That’s a lot of “stuff.” A lot of things to “measure,” as it were.  But which of those things matter?  Which ones matter most?  And does it depend on timing?  Is the same thing a greater accomplishment at a different season of life because its harder, more needful, or more relevant?

How exactly does one define “greatest” accomplishment?  How would you define “greatest accomplishment”?