Skip to main content

Messy Grace

Fall is here!  School is in full swing and if you have kids, then so is your life.  I miss the long,lazy days of summer break, but it's nice to finally get into a good routine.  Well, at least that sounds nice on paper!  The truth is life is unpredictable.  

I  am not exaggerating at all when I say one of my four kids has knocked their whole cup over at the table once a day for the last week!   And last Sunday one of my twins came running to tell me Eliana was eating someone's half chewed up candy from the grass!  I seriously had to dig in her mouth to get it out.  She did not want to give that thing up!  Then there was that quick bath on my sweet middle daughter's birthday... it turned into an ordeal when she jumped out screaming that little sister had pooped in the tub!   I told her happy birthday.  Her sister had her a present all right!

As much as I love my kids, children truly are disgusting!  At least in  that early stage until we teach them some social norms!  But I have a confession.  I am afraid I took the award for gross and parent of the year all at once during the first week of school.  The second afternoon after I picked the girls up, I was standing in the kitchen, and Alena opened her lunch box.  She pulled out a bag, and said, "Mommy, why did you send me this for lunch?!"  I glanced up from the dishes to see something horrible.  It was a ziplock bag with a sandwich inside that was absolutely black with mold!!!  "Where did you get that?" I asked in horror.  She informed me it was in a small zipper pocket on the side of the lunch bag.  I suddenly realized I never looked in that pocket, and it must have been a sandwich from last school year!!!  And here is the real revealing thing.  My first question wasn't did you eat any but did your new teacher see that?!?  I laughed until I cried.  I mean what mom does that?   Who sends their kid to school with a moldy sandwich from last year? Well,  yours truly apparently.  

Just when I get too focused on trying to do things perfectly or make things run smoothly something like this happens!  Something to remind me of how Much I need grace.  Grace to love those around me when life is messy.  And a sprinkle of humility to remind me how much God has grace with me.  

When I was sitting by the side of the tub feeling completely irritated with my three year old while I cleaned the poop up, she looked at me with those big brown eyes and said, "Your a good mommy."  It totally caught me off guard and also made me thankful I happened to not be yelling in that moment.  "Why do say that?" I asked.  "Because how you are cleaning me up!" she replied.  And all my frustration melted in a second.  Thank goodness she couldn't read my mind 10 seconds before.  

And I can't help but be reminded that we have a good Daddy.  How do I know?  Because of how He cleans us up.  Only he isn't irritated on the inside while He is doing it.  He is looking at us standing in the mess we have made of our lives and even if it stinks, He is cleaning us up with eyes full of love.  And when we respond with thankfulness, we invite Him to pull us closer.  And I can breathe a little freer in the craziness because I know I have a good Daddy right there with me, and I am not in this alone.


"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Deafening Silence

In a single second my life has been radically altered.  My precious gift from God, sweet Makiah Kaitlyn, has gone to be with Jesus long before her time.  I know in my heart that she is happy, but my arms are so empty... my house so dreadfully quiet.  I feel at times that a horrible blackness has enveloped me.  I feel as though my insides are screaming.  I am clawing and fighting to break out of this torturous body- to escape from this oppressive reality, but I cannot escape.  The dark anguish leaps on me again and again.  It sits on my chest and presses against my very life breath.  My heart feels utterly crushed and broken- pummeled into a thousand pieces.  Life as I knew it has been shattered and the shards that are left are painful and sharp.  Cutting me as I try to walk through them.  This is the valley of the shadow of death.  How dark is that shadow! Her room is perfectly untouched.  All of the dolls in her dollhou...
Post a Comment
Read more

Toes

Outside the sky is grey and dreary.  I feel it should rain torrents today.  I think the whole earth should cry out in grief.  I feel my heart pounding in my head.  My eyes will barely open, and I think no more tears can possibly come.  Maybe I will stand in the rain and borrow the tears from the sky. I look down at sparkly pink toes, and they are lonely.  Makiah, our last Sunday together you spent the morning in bed with Mommy (because I am on bed rest).  We ate fruit loops and snuggled.  We practiced drawing your letters and painted our fingers and toes.  You wanted rainbow toes, but I didn't have the colors with me.  I promised I'd paint you rainbow toes later.  Once we were all pink you said, "I got an idea!  Let's put sparklies over the pink, and you have to do it, too, Mommy, so we can be twins!"  You are such a princess!  So pink toes became sparkly toes.  We giggled and hugged and admired our matching fe...
1 comment
Read more

Wells of Living Water

My eyes filled with tears when my mother-n-law told me of her friend's idea.  This sweet lady, whom I've never met, wanted to know if she could do something special in honor of Makiah.  She said God had put it on her heart to start a well project for her.  She would sell "living water well charms" through Operation Blessing International to raise money to build a well for underprivelaged children in a poverty stricken country.  She said when 600 charms have been purchased, a well with a permanent plaque would be built to commemorate Makiah's life.  Not only was this an amazing idea, it was linked to my daughter's heart in a way that shocked me... What this thoughtful lady could not have known was that only 2 weeks before the accident, Makiah came into the kitchen on a Sunday morning carrying her whole piggy bank.  She told me she wanted to take it all to "give to the kids who need clean water."  The preschool class at church had been raising mon...
Post a Comment
Read more