Grace Upon Grace

Its been an interesting couple of months around here. There has been much need for grace as we navigate a large area of new territory.  I started a new medication a couple of months ago that did nothing short of lay me out.  Some of the best days were the ones where I found myself in the bathtub twice in the span of twenty four hours, I never knew how thankful I would be for that green mass of cast iron.  But overtime it has gotten easier and my body seems to be responding to the treatment and I am getting over the need to have a body that is not broken.  

However the road in between then and now has been bumpy.  After a particularly hard day I confessed to Brian that I was not only feeling horrible physically but I was failing to see a point to all of this.  If I could not do the things that I felt I had been called to do, if I had to fail and struggle to get through my day, how was any of this worth it.  And as soon as the confession slipped past my lips the realization became quite clear that what I was rejecting was not in fact the illness or the weakness but the one person who was reaching out to pull me up and out of that self made bed of pity and self righteousness as I so badly wanted out.   Brian quickly blanketed me in what was truth, reminding me that my point here on this badly broken earth was not to be well in my own right, was not be able to serve and to do what I had declared as my own calling, but it is in fact that I hold on to the one thing that will forever remain to be an option, and that is that I would have the ability to be discipled and disciple others.  Not because of my own ability, not my own understanding, not my own strength or even my own weakness, but because someone came to save me from all of that crap!!!!  I have no need to be well.  Ton of bricks, those words hit me like a ton of bricks.

Two weeks back I had sent Grace to brush her teeth (on a saturday, how dare I;) she grumbled past me and went downstairs to declare to her brother that I was in fact a poopyhead....this is Graces ultimate naughty word:)  Of course being the "good" son that he is, he promptly came to repeat what he had heard.  Here is where you may be surprised, I really couldn't care less about my children respecting me out of my own need to be respected.  In fact their emotions are welcome.  I do not want there obedience to me to be zombie like or a simple reaction to the sound of my voice.  I do not need this.  But I do ache and long for them to know Jesus love for them and if he determines me to be a worthy vessel to show them love and mercy and grace that stems from only Him who gives it to me first  than so be it.  And that is where I pray that I will see there response to me rooted, in Jesus. Because lets face it, I am failing at this mom thing daily and so I can not expect that they wouldn't think I was a poopyhead every now and again.  But  we had to talk about said words, and she was able to say what her little heart was feeling.  But perhaps what happened next was where the meat and potatoes would lie.  She said, "Mom, I just keep praying that God would make me better, that he would help me to be good." and that friends was a dagger to my heart.  And the spirit immediately filled the space as these words came from my lips,"Oh dear one you are so loved.  Your prayer need not be that God would make you good but that you would realize everyday how incredibly loved and forgiven and accepted you are as you reach for Jesus.  That in him you will find an ability to take on His light and cast off your need to be good." This was not the conversation I had prepared in my head two minutes before she appeared from the basement. 

Folks my hope has rested for years in my ability to be good, to be better.  To be a good mom, a good wife, a good daughter, friend.  My own body had become an idol rather than a temple for Jesus to rest.  Striving for health rather than restoration in the one who heals.  And my daughters confession was truly the nail in the coffin for that way of living.  I love so much being a mama!  It is continually a wrestling match, a collision of my sin and that of my children.  But the God does not waste anything in my own mothering the spirit is repeatedly taking the reigns to navigate the brokeness and with that comes healing.

Very fortunately I know these simple interactions are only a piece of my healing.  I am a long way from completion and perhaps that is where our true hope lies.  That HE is not finished with us.

I had a dear friend remind me of this song a few weeks back. I wanted so badly to believe these words.  I wanted so badly to rest in the truth in which they speak of.  But sometimes that can't happen until other pieces of the puzzle are found are provided.  Gods timing is not only perfect but complete.

Dear ones you are so loved.  Rest in that and walk in love!!