Another Motherhood "win"

I have had two deaths in my life this year.  Death is never easy.  It brings with it sadness, loss, grief, questions, accusations, insecurity, and a lot of other sometimes unexplained emotions as well as reactions.

I have been trying to "deal" with these two deaths the best that I know how.  I have been trying to take time to figure out where I am with it.  I have been assessing my reactions to other life events in lieu of the grief I am experiencing.  I have definitely been charged to give myself a LOT more grace than I ever have before (this one is hard for me.)  You know, you need grace in your life.  Not just to give others, but to allow for yourself as well.  We don't always act like we think we should, and if you are like me, you will find yourself judging you a LOT harder than you judge anyone else.  So, when you are grieving and you don't react "normally" to a lot of normal things that happen, grace has to be there.  If the grace is not given its opportunity to come, then you will go into shutdown mode, or breakdown.
i.e. My 8 month old Great Dane took a peanut butter sandwich right out of my 2 year old's hands the other day.  Normally, I would have scolded the Great Dane, put her outside and consoled my 2 year old while telling him to eat at the table so she didn't get his sandwich.  Instead, I immediately started crying.  I chased the Dane around the kitchen island while leaving the 2 year old crying in the corner!  I then chased the Dane into her crate, kicked the side of the crate wall, yelled at the Dane, and slammed the door on her so she would not be able to be near me for a while (this might have been the best decision of that moment).  I then scolded the 2 year old for "letting" the Dane eat his sandwich and stomped over the pantry to make him another (all the while leaving him to cry and run after me). 
Now, it makes my heart ache just re-living that story with you.  I don't normally act this way.  Why did I then?  One simple answer that is filled with so many deep side trails that I can't even explain them to you- GRIEF. 
I did sit down with the 2 year old to say I was sorry for the way I acted.  I hugged his neck and sent him to play with his siblings.  I then felt condemned.  But, I know that condemnation is not from the Lord.  And I am being transformed into His likeness.  So, if I shouldn't be condemned.  And I don't normally act this way, why did it happen this time?  Well, many rabbit trails later, I realized that the whole night, in the back of my mind, I was just needing to process a memory that had surfaced and I never took the time to do it.  So, when this arose, the emotions associated with the memory dictated my reaction.  Was it right?  No.  But those emotions where true and needed to come out.  Should they have come out on my dog and 2 year old?  No.  But they should have come out.  It wasn't the dog's fault or my son's fault that I reacted that way, but I would continue to react that way every time as long as I held my grief in.
I say all this to say that you need to let yourself have the proper time it takes to work though stuff.  And when something happens and you react in a way you know is not your normal self, take the time to think it through.  And let grace in so you can deal with what is already there waiting to come out.

Forgiveness

Some people say that it is not Biblical to forgive yourself.  I am not here to argue that point.  What I have noticed though is that so many of us walk around still holding on to our sin.  We aren't still sinning, but we are carrying our sin as if we still need it to remind ourselves of how bad we are and use it as a reminder of the punishment we offer ourselves over it.
THAT is what is not Biblical.  Whether we look closely enough to call it forgiveness or not, we need to recognize that when we beat ourselves up over a mistake we have made (sin), and we refuse to let it go until we have been "sufficiently" punished, we are not allowing something to happen.
Grace wants to come in.  Jesus wants what he did on the cross to be enough.  And when we don't give up our mistakes, we are not letting grace and what Jesus did to be enough for us in that moment.
So, let's make a commitment today to start letting all the horrific things Jesus went through to not be gone through in vain.  Let that stripe on his back be enough for your mistake today.  Let grace wash over you and pour down your life like the blood poured down His.

A New Depth of Grace

I am a Christian.  I have walked this truth out for almost 20 years of my life now, and subsequently, I have gotten pretty "good" at it.  Ugh.  That even pains me to say. 

It is at the realization of saying that when I start to unfold my truth for this week.  I am the ugliest person I know.  I don't mean the kind with disfigured features or uneven skin tone either.  I mean that on the inside of myself lies a depth of filth that is greater than even I want to explore...

I get "whiffs" of it sometimes though and that is when another "ugly" comes out to play...PRIDE.  Especially as a Christian, I know that I am supposed to be continually sanctified (becoming more like Jesus) and so, when that whiff of ugly (in the form of a thought or thought combined with emotion) that is not at all like Jesus comes out, my pride kicks in and either justifies it with the best Christian-ese I can conjure, or stuffs it away as if it never even happened in the first place.  More than likely, the second...

And this is where I have been. 

There is more to this story though.  You see, Jesus never asked me to be clean.  He just asked me to come and believe that he is clean.  He never asked me to only have pure thoughts.  he just asked me to come and believe that his thoughts are pure.  he never asked me to always do the right thing.  He only asked me to come and believe that he did the right thing.  And when I try and take over those actions, I am really saying I don't need Him. 

So, I am coming today, bearing my ugly heart.  It is filled with spite, malice, jealousy, deceit, pride and intolerance.  But that is just the kind of heart He can do something with.  He says he will give me a new one anyway.  And when I awake tomorrow, filled with the dirt of the who I once was, His mercies are there just the same...

Don't try and be something for Him.  Just accept what He did for you!  And I will too~

Blogging

I have a friend who is on me to blog.  She asks all the time....but I don't have time.  She says to just write.  I say that even when I try and make time, it does not happen.  Like right now, I told my husband that I needed to just go up to the computer and get this out.  So, I went up, sat down, started typing, and low and behold, three out of my four kids are piled on top of me...GRRR.......

What am I supposed to do?  Is blogging that important?  Yes.  Why?  Because it makes me feel better.  Then why don't I do it more?  Because it is more frustrating to try and do it and be totally and completely interrupted than to just not do it....UGH!  So, why can't I just blog with three kids on top of me?  I can't even think!  One is playing with my hair, one is singing, "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas" and one is throwing a ball against the wall right next to my head!  Try and concentrate and get a clear thought with that!

This is the reality of my life though.  I am not good at balancing it.  I quite frankly, suck at doing it gracefully anyway.  But two things remain in all of this. 

1. I may or may not be doing a "good" job but I am doing the best I can.

2. God's grace is bigger than my shortcomings...

And that, my friends, is all you need to know