Release

Sunday morning I woke up and dragged myself and my boys to Kingdom Community at my church (Sunday School). I got there late and was too embarrassed to go in and interrupt the teacher so I hung outside. I saw our children's minister and began talking to him. Our oldest children just graduated from high school. We started talking about their future plans and how God is leading them. I started tearing up as I told him my fears for my babies. I did not do a good enough job. I failed them in so many areas. I have not prayed for them as I should. I did not make them do things I probably should have made them do, and now, in a few short weeks they will be away from me. And my heart cries.

In my discussion with him, I realized I am scared to death. I did not do right by my children and now they were going to fail at college because of me.

So Monday. I am slogging through this fear. I cannot see beyond it. I am totally captivated and en-mired in it. I accomplish nothing. I do not go to God. As a matter of fact, I start dredging up and making excuses for all of my failures. And I mention that God failed me in my mutterings. He has left me alone to dangle in my miserable little world (of MY creation). A friend texted me and sent me encouraging words from scripture and I ignored them. Instead of paying heed, I buried myself in reading and watching Netflix. I put off thinking at all by filling my mind with something that would keep me from both fear and accomplishing what I needed to. I envisioned things that were unholy and self serving. I did it until the wee hours of the morning. I did not want to lay my head down. I was mentally and physically fatigued to the point of wishing when I closed my eyes, I would not wake up again.

Now - I am not normally a melodramatic person. I truly hate drama. And yet - I reveled in it yesterday. I drummed it up and danced around it. Ridiculous.

I slept. Finally.

This morning my heavenly father - whose mercies are new every morning met me where I was - in the mess I had made in an unfettered mind run amuck. My mind was still and I went downstairs to a pot of coffee that had been made and left for me by my husband. And I sat with it and reached for my devotional book written for moms, and it led me to this scripture:

Romans 5 NIV

I am undone. The Gospel - so simple and so rewarding -  can be so offensive to an independent mind like my own. I think it is all up to me. The Gospel says it is not. I think that if I mess up, that my life and those touched by it will not prosper. The Gospel says that is not true.

My hope lies with a God who sacrificed his Son so that I might live an imperfect yet significant life. This life of struggle is a beautiful thing - when my mind is set correctly. The law which I am so set to follow and do on my own, only points me to Christ in my failure to be able to accomplish it. My "I got this" attitude is a smelly mess and serves no one well. Because honestly, I do not have this. I WANT to have this. I WANT to accomplish and prosper by my own hand. I WANT to be a person who is admired and loved by those accomplishments. But that is not possible. I end up failing and berating myself and utterly miserable.

The Gospel says that I have HOPE in the midst of my sin - my inabilities, my failures, my stubborn refusal to trust.

And the gem that truly makes my heart relax, my mind rest is this:

Romans 5:20b, 21 But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21 so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.


Grace. (the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings.)  In spite of my failures, God holds out grace to me and to my children. Does God expect my perfection? My abilities? Even my consistency? No. He knows me. He knows my lack of ability, my inconsistency and my imperfection (vast ) - He sees it and loves me anyway. I cannot comprehend it. It is where I fail to trust him every time.

This morning I am praising God. He has raised me up in the midst of my misery to a new hope and fervor to be faithful to show him and his mercies to my family and to those who are much like me. They will be fine. He will show himself faithful to them, just as he has been to me. I pray they are better at listening and believing than I am. I pray they do not beat their heads against a wall in their attempt to do it all by themselves. But I am afraid they are much like me and will have the same struggles. But God is faithful. They will be fine.

I hope this finds someone and encourages them as it has me. God is gracious in his love toward us. On that we can rely.

God bless and keep you!

What I have learned this summer...

I have learned a lot this summer.

I have learned -again- that I am indeed a sinner that is prone to wander no matter the circumstances. It is exhausting when I try to live in my own strength. I just cannot do it. Well...graciously...really - it's just a train wreck.

I have learned that my best feature is my faith. Believe it or not - though my faith is weak - I tend to believe things that many doubt. This faith that is given to me, and to every human on this earth is a gift from God.  My faith has been placed in many wrong things over the years, causing me to falter and fall. I have placed my faith in friends, money, my own abilities - and every single one of those things have let me down at one point or another. I have let it cause me to be bitter and drag around a burden that was not meant for me to carry.

God has something better.

I have learned that my boys - all three of them - in spite of me, have grown into young men that I am incredibly proud of. How did this happen? The grace of God. There is nothing in me that can make these boys be what they need to be. Can I help? Yes. And I should. Am I perfect? Sadly no. But if you read all of the articles that are posted on Facebook and circulating the web, you would think it was all up to us and the amount of TV and sugar and devices we do or don't let our kids indulge in. But it is not.

Of course there are things we need to do to raise our children well and we try to give them the tools they need to be successful. In the end though my trust has to be in God and not in anything I can give them. They are a work of the divine hand of God working through me to make them what He needs them to be.

I have learned that kids are kids. They are not always a reflection of what I am, or what I have taught them...and yet - they are. One of the most encouraging things I have come to understand over the years is that kids will grow out of the stupid things they say. The first set of students I discipled said and did some stupid things sometimes. I didn't worry about it at the time - #1 they weren't my children #2 I was also very young. But I heard adults that were leaders in the church say some things that I found wounded me, and would certainly hurt these kids we worked so hard to support in their journey to know God. What I have come to understand as an adult is that I cannot allow myself to think less of these kids because of what they say now. I have thought the same things as an adult about my own children, and other students I work with, that if voiced out loud could be hurtful. But God has allowed me to see those kids I disciple 20 + years ago that said stupid things, grow up into amazing adults that have poured themselves into other students and their own children  - full of the GRACE of God. These kids I work with at the high school now (my own babies included) will grow up and start doing and saying stupid things less. I say less because I still say and do stupid things. I will not judge. When I think, "What a bonehead", I immediately follow it up with, "thank God they will grow out of it". And I mean it. And most of them will - due to God's grace and maybe even God's grace through me - so it causes me to "not grow weary in well doing" (Gal. 6:9).

I have learned that I can trust God each day to take care of my needs. When I purposefully make the decision to...and I have to do it minute by minute on some days, because my control fer-REAK ways want to run in and do what I think is best. God has protected me from myself...sometimes in ways that actually scared me more for a night as I wrestled over why this way wouldn't work. I woke up with faith that GOD had this. I had been given the solution to my worries and that was to trust God day by day, moment by moment.

And I will need this. I will have to remind myself of this - over and over again this year because...I have twin boys that are seniors and they are uncertain where they want to go. And I want to know now. I want the finances ironed out now and I want not to have to think about it anymore.

But that is not how God has chosen to work this scenario out...so wait I must.

Isaiah 40:31 [Full Chapter]

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

I am counting on this. 

Six Little Bedheaded Boys

So the boys have been begging me for months to have friends over. I just couldn't find the gumption. Really? I have three kids already, and where I used to say, "what's one more kid?", I don't say that anymore. One more kid seems more than I can handle.

But since I have started my Great Adventure things seem different. Am I any less tired? No. I am however, not nearly as stressed out. I have also embraced the fact that things will never be in reality what they are in my head. My head is full of ridiculously romantic notions of a perfectly clean house with well behaved kids and amazing meals with memorable moments. I am nuts. Well, about everything but the memorable moments. That to me, is attainable without all of the orderly things.

I have been cleaning out an 8 year olds room this week. An 8 year old that has 11 years of hand me downs that stopped with him and never moved on. It is a small room, full of baby toys. Well...not anymore. I have cleaned it out. And with no job, I have proceeded to try to sell whatever seemed sellable. I am thinking about venturing onto eBay even.  Scary.

My house in cleaning out the room is a shambles. My ADD apparently is running rampant in the mountains of things not kept up with in the last 18 months. So, I have piles everywhere. Piles of old clothes, piles of dirty clothes, piles of clean clothes that need to be folded, piles of nerf guns, piles of Christmas decorations that need to be put in the attic. Seriously a focus nightmare. And the boys continue to beg.

We give in. I - in my normal overly optimistic way - thought I could get the piles cleared out and put away in one day. I might could have, but a friend asked me to lunch.  Well...I would much rather go to lunch than clean up piles. It's a no brainer. And I missed my friend. People are more important than things - always. And I rationalized that I could get it done in a few hours if I dropped my standards a bit.

So off to lunch I went. I came home refreshed and encouraged and full of wonderful ideas. It was such a good decision. But I had an hour to get the house clean before the SIX boys came home. A wee bit panicky - not for the boys sake - but for mine (I am still operating from that orderly idea in my head), I begin to do whatever I can to get the mess tamed.

Fail.

But come to find out, it did not matter. Within an hour of all 3 of our guests arriving and added to my own 3, the house was a wonderful, raucous, melee of arms legs and constant motion. It did not wind down until 2:30AM when I got up from my own bed and used my stern voice to yell, "GO TO SLEEP".

When I stepped down and saw six little bedheads this morning, laughing, playing and enjoying each other, I was suddenly very thankful I didn't clean the house any better than I had, because I would be doing it all over again today. But what a happy thing to hear friends playing capture the flag in my little cottage of a house. How happy it was to watch them as they grabbed pancakes and sausage and bowed their heads together to thank God for their breakfast, then scurry off to finish the game.

As I sat down to do my daily blog and Bible reading, I looked down to see the menu of the restaurant I went to with my precious friend. It is a Mediteranean restaurant and the menu is a gracious extension of the hospitality I felt when I sat down to eat lunch.

It says, " In our culture, "breaking bread" with someone is a signal of everlasting friendship. So as you break bread with us today, we genuinely hope that even though you came in as a customer, you will leave as a friend, and come back to see us soon." (Naji's Pita Gourmet - John Hawkins Parkway - Hoover, AL)

And that is exactly how I feel. I pushed aside something that didn't matter to break bread with a friend, and gave up on a perfect house and enjoyed the moment in spite of the monumental mess. I would say it was a decidedly perfectly guided decision. I feel my boys benefitted from it, as did I.

I am pretty sure the reality of a messy house and happy children, is much better then the ideal in my head. I thank God for the lovely, excited voices of these six little bed headed boys.