The Way Home

My growing-up years left me with a lot of insecurity and self-esteem issues.

Those issues didn’t stem from parents who weren’t affirming and loving; Mom and Dad were both. But we grew up poor (we even had an outhouse once), my clothes were conservative and unstylish, and I didn’t fit in well at school.

When we went through the grocery line and my mom pulled out the food stamps, I always looked around for anyone from school who might notice. It wasn’t cool to be poor.

I remember small things from those days.

Mom making powdered milk and then pouring it into a milk container from the store, trying to trick us kids. (We always knew.)

Overhearing my parents discussing that we didn’t have enough money for an expense and sneaking into Mom’s purse to get a five-dollar bill. I cut it in half and proudly presented it to them, saying. “Look, I made extra money for you!”  (In my defense, I was about five.)

Remembering my mom adding water to the ketchup bottle and shaking it around to make it go just a little further to feed a family of eight. Because of her creative abilities to stretch a little bit of food into a miraculously large amount, we never went hungry, although our food was plain and basic.

I remember once when we experienced the rare treat of going to an ice cream shop, and Dad told us we could each order a small ice cream cone. While we waited for the cones to arrive, the waitress put a triple-decker sundae in front of me–it was resplendent and so tempting in its tall glass dish, covered with candy sprinkles, chocolate pieces, and thick caramel syrup.

My face lit up. Was this a special surprise? Were we all getting magnificent sundaes? How did this wondrous miracle happen?

My joy lasted all of the three seconds it took the server to realize her mistake and move the sundae to the person at the table next to us. I know my dad noticed the incident, and it made him sad. He would have loved to have gotten a special treat for all of his kids, but there just wasn’t enough money. The cones were a luxury, though, and we were grateful for them.

Mom was a quiet and steady person, always ready with a listening ear, a prayer, and a word of encouragement.  She never wanted to be in the limelight and dressed plainly and simply.

She had so many positive attributes, but sometimes, as I grew up, I wished she were like the other moms who helped their daughters with hair, makeup, and fashion. I ended up trying to figure it out on my own with minimal success, always feeling out of place at school no matter what. I was the weird girl who worked in the school cafeteria to earn extra money, serving green peas and pizza to my classmates as they came through the lunch line.

Because nothing says cool like feeding your classmates lunch.

I graduated from a non-traditional homeschool program, didn’t go to college, and got married at nineteen. Not exactly the path of success.

But it was that unique personal journey that made me into the person that a certain Steve Smith wanted to build a life with.

This is where we started.

This is where we are. (Plus four fab grands.)

But even after all these years of being well loved and so blessed, that insecure side of me still crops up from time to time.

For instance, if we’re sitting with a group of people who all have college degrees and have accomplished amazing things, I feel the remorse of not being better educated. Or if I see a 14-year-old girl whose makeup, clothes, and hair are–no kidding–far more polished than my own, I feel the old longing for a mom who was able to help me more with those things growing up.  (Obviously I hadn’t had a lot of help in this photo.)

As an introverted, creative person who was usually happier being alone than with others, I often felt like I was on the outside looking in, and usually that didn’t bother me. But sometimes I wished things could have been different.

And that leads to my life now.

As you know, I work at the front desk at a corporate headquarters in Charlotte. I remember a particular day when I was at my desk and saw a luxurious black car pull up out front.

The three men who got out had personas that screamed success, and I knew they had just flown in from far-flung cities as a lot of our visitors did. I also knew that I would be the company’s first face and voice they would encounter.

And all of a sudden, I was overcome all over again with the old anxieties, the familiar feelings of not fitting in. Poor, unstylish, food stamps, shabby home . . . how could I possibly be capable of successfully dealing with these wealthy, influential men when we were so different?

I had to give myself a quick talking-to as I saw those people approach the door. And that is what they were. Just people. They were people who were tired of airplanes, people who had jet lag, people who missed their homes and families. They had more responsibility and pressure on their shoulders than I could begin to imagine.

What they needed when they walked through our doors was not to see someone with a flawless appearance and two college degrees. They really only needed to see a welcoming smile and hear a friendly voice. It’s amazing the difference it made when I stopped thinking about my own insecurities and started thinking about how I could make weary travelers feel welcome.

It doesn’t matter where we’ve come from, how rich, how poor, or how educated we are. Our hearts all feel pain the same; our souls all feel hope the same.

And in the end, we are all just travelers on the way home.

What about you?

How has your upbringing influenced who you are today?

What are things from your childhood are you grateful for?