To Be a Giver of Grace

I love grace.  I breathe grace.  I live grace. 

It's the love song of my life.  I have been wooed by it and the song writer Himself and I can't imagine ever living my life without it again.  It's my tagline up there for heaven's sake.

The beauty of it warms me on cold days and satisfies my parched heart during those seemingly endless desert-y seasons.

Everything that I have, that I am, I owe it all to the grace of my good God.

{source}

And yet I'm terrible at reaching out and extending it to others.

I don't know if that pains my heart or pricks my pride more.

Me, the recipient of this colossal amount of grace, has a hard time sharing it with others.

Maybe it's being a first born.  I love black and white.  I love rules and regulations and rewards for good behavior and consequences for poor choices.  Fairness and justice are very high on my list of favorite things.

I remember one day watching a show about flipping houses, where the story followed two men, friends and business partners, as they bought a rundown mess and tried to renovate it, while cutting corners, doing a terrible job and then setting an unbelievably high selling price.

I hoped it would take them months to sell that house, hurting their pockets and bottom line.  That would only be fair.  It took a mere few weeks and to add insult to injury, it was right at the price they were asking.  I was incensed.  They had done a lazy, slipshod job, gypping their future buyers and then demanding a high price.  The thought that they would be rewarded drove me absolutely nuts.

Whatever happened to "laying in the beds they had made"?

And I'm afraid to admit that I can be that way with those that I love.

Holy cow, that one hurts.

Grace isn't based on what is deserved, otherwise it wouldn't be grace.  We all know that.

But do I live that? 

No.

Do you?

For too long, I've been a grace-receiver, loving the relief that it has given my withered soul, breathing life and abundance and freedom and love.  A vertiable grace-mooch, if you will.

Now it's my turn to be a grace-giver, starting first at home and then letting the concentric circles from that first stone thrown reach out to those beyond.  It's time that I start living a grace-full life.

Grace for others.

Missing You

How I've been missing this... this space to write, to pour out, to decompress.  But more than that, I've missed YOU.

Between a renovation and moving, my brain has been zapped.  I think I lost it midday last Thursday.  Just like that!  It's gone.

Our lives have been this crazy hullabaloo and it's not easing up.

Blog posts are forming in my head and I look longingly over at the computer, waiting so very patiently for me, and I know that it's just not going to happen... except for these few minutes that I'm stealing away before little feet come pounding down the hall demanding their breakfast and milk.

I've missed this community, these friendships.  I've missed the fun of going back and forth and visiting others on their little pieces of the Internet.  But for now, I'm here, in this season of unpacked boxes and sorting out how to live with one functional bathroom for seven people.

We're here now, though, and that's what matters.

And soon, I'll be back, writing and sharing with you.

Because I've missed you.

And I hope you've missed me, too.  Even with my paint-splattered face.

Young Lady

To my dear girl, Maggie...

  Twelve years have brought countless adventures and changes to our lives.  You've been there to ride the ride with me, the ups, the downs, the laughter, the tears.
  Now, slowly, your wings are beginning to unfurl, and I step back in awe and marvel at the grace and beauty that you possess.  I watch, I wonder, I thank God every day for the gifts He has given you... and that you share with me.
  You are my first, the one who has taught me the ropes of this whole motherhood gig.  You've forgiven me when I've messed up, continuing to wrap your arms around my neck and using words to wrap warmth around my heart.
  Your creativity inspires me to see things from different perspectives and your millions of ideas truly bring joy to my heart.
  I love you so much, darling girl.  And what's more, I really like you.  I think you are an amazing young woman and if I were twelve, we'd be really great friends.
  Happy belated birthday, my young lady.  May God's blessings abound for your whole life.  I pray you learn to love Him even more than I do.

Love,
Your Mama

Monday Morning Meditation - John 2:5

Our brains are going from the minute we open our eyes to the nightmarish screeching of the clock radio every morning to when we snuggle down into our miraculous pillow-top.

Instead of getting shorter, the to-do list is growing by the minute, the budget is being stretched beyond it's limit and Taco Bell, Wendy's and Papa John's will be on a first name basis with us by the time it's all said and done.  Daddy and the children are being assaulted by "The Allergies" and I'm thinking of heavily investing in hand sanitizer.

Yes, we are in the middle of a home renovation.

(to Judah's delight, we were pretending to be robbers.

stinky, sweaty robbers.

pretty easy to entertain that four-year-old)

In the eye of the hurricane is our contractor friend, Jordan.  He's the guy who knows the answers, the city codes, the way to plumb our bathroom to satisfy this lady's heart and, best yet, possesses the same humor as Paco.  Bull's eye.

He's the boss of us.

We hand over our list, our dreams that we've been holding in the palms of our hands, and he scans it.  Yes, that will work... nope, not gonna happen....  hmmmm, not sure.

And here we thought that we were the bosses.

We're the ones who are following his instructions.

"Do whatever He tells you, " His mother told the servants. 

~John 2:5

I love the confidence Mary has here in Her Son.  It almost seems like she's saying, "I don't have time to figure out how You're going to do it, but here you go, Son.  Take care of it."

And He does.

Sounds like a Mama to me.

It's just as simple as that.  Do what He tells you.

Simple, and yet the hardest thing we could ever do.

But just like with our contractor, if we do what Jesus says to do, it will go well with us, it will all come together, it will work.

And it will beautiful.

Do what He says, my friends, and it will go well with you.  I promise.

Ah, it's Monday and with it comes the opportunity to start our week off knee-deep in the Word!  Join me over at Jane's Girl Meets Paper today, won't you?  You'll be blessed, I promise!

Monday Morning Meditations - 2 Corinthians 3:17

Now the Lord is the Spirit, 

and where the Spirit of the Lord is, 

there is freedom.

~2 Corinthians 3:17

A year and a half ago, I sat in my living room, slowly being strangled to death.  I couldn't breathe, couldn't see, couldn't even think.

My captor wasn't a physical intruder, yet was uninvited, unwanted, unwelcome just the same.

Hope was a lovely, unattainable dream, ever present, but never tangible, always alluding my frantic grasp.

Growing up, words well meant, sincerely believed, somehow lived were spoken by others into my life.  Yet instead of causing me to be inspired, they slowly were killing me, one strangling constriction at a time.

"Every time you sin, you get further away from God's perfect plan for you... even if you are forgiven of it.  If you make wrong decisions over and over, you'll get so far from what the perfect plan is that He won't be able to use you."

Over the years, the pressure of these words got to the point where they absolutely paralyzed me.  I lived in constant fear of making the wrong decision. 

Slowly, ever so subtly, I was being squeezed to death by my own fear.

{source}

Then the winds of change...of grace... began to blow, whispering soft soothing truths to my battered and sore spirit.

"...where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."

Ah, the blessedness of freedom.

Certainly, I am not writing of purposely sinning, testing God, just being foolish enough to think that anything is permissible because of His forgiveness.

No, loves, not at all.

I am talking about the very real business of God's grace and love.  For without it, I don't know where I'd be, but I can assure you it would involve me being chained and enslaved somewhere.

In this freedom, you can be exactly who God created you to be, doing what He has designed you to do.  You can be confident that you are doing His work, despite your frail human-ness and shortcomings.  

Thank goodness for those who don't wait to be perfect and sinless before starting on His work.  Nothing would ever get done!

No, it's in spite of our shortcomings and humanity that God works.  God can't work with us chained and enslaved to sin, to memories, to false expectations.

So He offers us freedom, from sin and from ourselves.

Do you feel that?  It's the gentle breeze of freedom blowing, my dears.  Embrace it... live in it.

Be free.

Good Monday morning to you.  I'm linking up to Jane's Monday Morning Meditations today and I know she would love it if you popped by there to see what she had to say about this verse!

Five Minute Friday - Jump

{Amazingly, she's not crying here.

Livy, 3 years old.}

I have a six year old... a bubbly, effervescent, sparkly six year old complete with brown piggy tails, a slight lisp and a fine spray of freckles across her nose.

I adore her.

For six summers in a row, we've had her in the pool, determined to teach her the very basics of swimming.

She has screamed, grasped, clung, cried, and clawed every last piece of exposed flesh on my back.

Ah, the joys of motherhood.

We finally convince her to stand on the edge, as we gently, subtly move back, farther and farther, away from the boundary of her comfort zone.

Panic begins to set in and I see a full set of my toes in miniature grasp the side of the deck, determined to not give way.

After some fast talking by Daddy and me, the outstretching of our hands and the promises that we're not leaving, a trembling breath is taken, a scream begins even before two feet leave the earth and determination sets in.

We have lift off.

And for a split second, she feels the joy, the thrill, the embrace of freedom.

Panic quickly sets in again after she surfaces and actually realizes what she's done.  No, she will not go up there again.

At least this time.

But there's always next time.

Thank the Lord for those next times.

For all of us.  Yes?

Would you like to jump with us?  Join us at Lisa-Jo's Five Minute Friday!

The Mama Joy of Bath-tisms.

I was never promised this brown boy with dimples that flash at a moments notice.  I couldn't have anticipated his infectious grin or his lightning wit.

God gave me no guarantee that I would ever get to relish in the dirt and mud and noise that is the world of boys.

I was given my first child, a beautiful, precocious girl.  Then, all the sudden, I was a single mama, raising her, praying that, when the time was right, I would have a husband and more children to love on.

And then he was here and we named him Samuel which, appropriately, means "asked of God".  In my heart, I had pleaded for this boy.

By God's grace, I was given this son, and yesterday, he showed the world that he is a follower of Christ.

And like it did when my Maggie was baptized, my heart nearly exploded with overwhelming joy.

{getting a little nervous during

his profession of faith}

{with his bustin'-his-buttons proud daddy

and our dear friend, Andrew}

{my heart was in a puddle

by this point}

And while it was wonderful to see him be baptized, my heart was so blessed by all the growth and preparation that I've seen in him leading up to it.  It wasn't just something fun to do on a spring day.  His heart wants to obey his Jesus and so he did.

As I heard about the horrific tragedy that happened at the Boston Marathon today, I was more than heartsick and discouraged.

I cried out to my Jesus, looking for peace for this mama's heart.

And He reminded me of the rejoicing and hope that took place yesterday.

Suddenly, I could breathe again.