Grace for Mommies.

I subscribe to a few blogs so lately I've been getting a handful of daily emails with devotional content. These give some perspective for my day and help me to open my heart to hear more clearly what God wants to speak into my life that day. And by His grace and goodness, He often times strings them all together with the same theme so that even in my most dense moments, it's hard not to notice what He wants me to focus on.

Today is one of those days.
God's apparent theme for me today is: GRACE.

Pastor Ed Underwood's blog post was about grace:
DISCIPLESHIP MINUTE: LIARS DON'T NEED GRACE

Proverbs 31 Ministries' daily devotion talked about grace:
GRACE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE PERFECT TO BE GOOD

My Parenting by Design reading plan touched on grace:
EXTENDING GRACE (sorry, no link for this one)


GOD IS SO GOOD! I am so thankful for the way He uses these ministries and His word to speak His truth into my life, especially when He does it right when I really need it.

Here are some of the insights that hit home for me.

From Ed's post:

"You see, if we’re honest we know that every one of us needs a rescue from our sin. And, we must admit that if the rescue wasn’t free, we’d have no hope.
But if we lie to ourselves and others, we’ll decide that our sins are the ones that don’t need payment, that our shortcomings and pathologies are the ones God must have decided were okay. And then, the grace He gives to others upsets us."

I'm reminded here of God's grace offered and poured out upon me. I need just as much grace as the next person. We're all in the same boat, deserving of death and condemnation because of our sinful nature, yet undeserving recipients of the grace that flows through the blood of Jesus shed on the cross.

This gives me the right perspective to set out on the path of giving grace to others, especially my kids. I have to understand how much I need it before I can give it.

From P31 Ministries:

I related so strongly with this post. This is so me:

"I looked for ways to lovingly reassure her. I held her hand. I let her see my pleasure in her through the expressions on my face. And I kept quiet when my nerves were begging me to do otherwise.

I did really well ... for a couple of hours.

And then I lost it. Completely.

I was so discouraged."

This has been my exact process so many times... It has felt like a constant roller coaster.

But this is what the Lord really wanted to drive home for me today:

"But as I think back on it now, that part of it is grace too. I demonstrated the reason I can give grace is because I so desperately need it. I asked for forgiveness and decided to resist my own funk begging me to sit and wallow in my messy humanity.

I dusted myself off, and whispered, "God help me. Please, please help me."

And I took one more step towards the grace I so desperately want to demonstrate.

...
Remember, grace doesn't have to be perfect to be good."


From Parenting by Design:

Although we may understand them on an intellectual level, it can still be hard for us to accept God's grace. Often, we try to be "good enough" because we can't seem to separate our value from our performance.

...Once we have truly experienced the extent of God's grace,we can extend it to our children in a life-changing way. Knowing we are all sinners in need of grace, we can allow them to experience the consequences of their choices without condemning who they are as people.


Follow God's example of grace by offering unconditional love for the sinner while delivering consequences for the sin.


Thoughts from a Lady:
 
The past few days, my journey with the Lord has led me to a place of vulnerability. I've had to revisit the pain in my past in order to try to heal the wounds that I only covered up and never allowed God to truly close. So He's in the process of setting my feet and my heart in the right direction to allow me to experience His grace in such a real way and to live the promises in His Word the way He intended. Yet because of the fragility of my emotions at this point in time, He has been my encouragement with each step. He's been showing me that it's okay to stumble. It's okay to take a step back sometimes. I don't have to be perfect. I just have to try to be obedient. I have to take joy in the progress I have made. So even if I take 10 steps forward and 1 step back, I'm still making progress... I'm still moving forward. He's trying to break my perfectionist, overachiever mentality so that I can actually grow in His grace and not be held prisoner to my own criticism, self-condemnation and fear of not being good enough.

I believe that as God molds me into the mother He wants me to be and the mother my kids need me to be, I will learn to embrace the grace He gives so freely to me. As a result, it will flow freely through me and into my interactions with my kids. And just the other day, I came to the stark realization that all that my kids want from me is my unconditional love and my acceptance of who they are, no matter what that looks like. 

"To be known is to be loved. To be loved is to be known. "