Grace, loads of Grace

Who is challenged and disturbed by disorder? I know I am.

Monday was an ordinary day. I was home alone working on my writing projects while my kids were in school. The tornado left over from the weekend was beckoning me, but I chose to set those things aside to work on my articles for Crosswalk that were desperately overdue.

I knew in my head that my boys had football games that evening but I did not process what needed to be done leading up the evenings events.

I am usually one to be ahead of the planning and preparing but today I lost that talent, got distracted and paid for it in the end.

I realized much too late that I still needed to shower, pack food for the stadium, drop off the boys early and still pick up my kindergartener from the bus. My husband arrived home to find his wife in a panic.

In the sweet way that he always does, he just gets busy doing what needs to be done. However, he chose to fold laundry, bless his heart, not the job that needed to be done.

Needless to say, the house was in an uproar with me as the culprit.

Can you relate?

The only person to blame was myself. I was angry for not planning better. I was angry because no on was rushing like I needed and I was angry becasue I had chosen this outcome.

I needed grace. I needed to give myself grace. As I stood in the shower, scrubbing quickly, I said outloud “Heidi, I give you grace. You don’t need to do all the things perfectly. It is ok if we only have peanut butter and honey for dinner in the stands. Its ok if the kids are a bit late and its ok that you don’t have it all together.”

So let’s give ourselves grace today.

Grace in the undone, grace in the lack of planning or grace in the forgetfulness of full-time mom life.

Thankfully,we have a gracious God. One who delves out grace abundantly every single day. If Jesus can give us the grace that we need than we can certainly give ourselves grace.

Jesus,

Help me to give myself grace. Help me to humble myself in knowing that I don’t have to do alone. I don’t need to rely solely on my own strength, I can rest in yours. Thank you for the busy, event filled and joy saturated life that you have given me.

Amen.