All good things. We’ve all been doing good things. Developing individual strengths and talents is good. But it can be exhausting. And it can be hard on family unity.

I can feel it. I can feel that everyone’s hearts have been focused on self. I can feel that we are facing outward, each doing our own thing, going our own way.

And now it’s time to turn around. Huddle up. Nurture each other. Love each other. It’s time to work together to get everything unpacked and in order at our new home. It’s time to spend more time hanging out as a family. Eating meals together. Laughing. Playing in the backyard. Weeding the flower beds. Dancing in the family room. It’s time to sit and snuggle and talk.

I have been short on patience, not enjoying my kids. They are annoying each other and easily annoyed. We are all behaving selfishly. So it’s time. Soccer season is ending. School is almost over. The outside commitments and time-sucks are falling away. Mercifully, summer is arriving.

Lord, give me grace so that I can give them grace. Draw our hearts back to You and to each other. Thank you for Time. Stretches of time to ease our way out of ourselves and back into our connection with each other. Give me peace so I can be steady tranquility in this home. Shelter me under Your wings so I can be their safe place. Give me joy so I can laugh and they can laugh. Replace our harsh tones and ugly words with giggles and sweetness. Fill our hearts with love, which covers a multitude of things. Yes, that’s it – blanket us in love. Bind us up in love. 

Aaaaahh, new season and new mercies. Just what this family needs!

My brain zeroes in on all the ways I mess up this mothering thing. And I beat myself up. Because after almost 15 years, I should be doing a better job. At least that’s what I tell myself as I lie in bed and replay all the ways I blew it that day.

But then Mother’s Day comes along, and my kids and husband fill our Brag Board (props to Jen Hatmaker for the idea) with all sorts of lovely things about me.

And they made homemade cards saying things like You are the BEST mom ever! I am so happy to have you as a mom! and You’re awesome, Momma!

And some of them even get the you’re and your correct! Which makes me feel like I really am succeeding as a grammar-geek-momma.

I have this one son who has especially been struggling with emotional and behavioral outbursts lately — this is the one I have most recently felt particularly unqualified and ill-equipped to be mothering. In the most beautiful cursive handwriting, this son wrote these words to me on Mother’s Day:  Thank you for . . . cooking, helping with homework, cleaning the house, helping with Jubilee (children’s ministry), teaching me about God, cheering me on at soccer games, buying me clothes. I love you! 

Another son chose these adjectives to describe me:  loving, sweet, nice, beautiful.

For real! They said that about ME! Even though I forget to sign permission slips and forget to send in lunch money and can’t keep track of their soccer uniforms. Even though I completely lost it and morphed into fire-breathing dragon-momma when they trashed the basement and had a wrestling match on top of piles of dirty laundry. Even though I can’t stay and watch diving practice again because I have to drive this other kid to this other thing. Even though I didn’t sign up to chaperone that event or this field trip. Even though I bought the wrong kind of yogurt. Even though I shewed them out of my room so I could watch Call the Midwife alone. And even though I shush them during American Idol because REALLY? Can we not be quiet during the songs?

In spite of all my mess-ups and failures and shortcomings, they love me. These little people view me through a lens of grace. Oh what mercy!

And I need Mother’s Day because I need to be reminded to view myself through that same lens of grace.

And you do too. Whether you’re a mother or not, you need to be reminded to view yourself through a lens of grace.

So consider this your reminder. Today, receive mercy.

This is your Mother’s Day, your You Day, whomever you are. This is your Brag Board. Read it and receive it.

This morning, six families stood on the stage at our church and publicly promised that, by God’s grace working in their lives, they will raise their children to know and love Jesus.

After we handed out certificates and prayed for their families, I was able to share my heart with our church family as I spoke about what it means to dedicate our children to the Lord.

You can listen to that message HERE – A Baby in a Basket – Jochebed’s Example of Faith.

After you listen, I’d love it if you’d share with us a story about God’s faithfulness in your lives. Or a time when you’ve trusted God. Or maybe a way that you’re being brave. So hit up the comments section after you listen & help us know God better by telling your story.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mommas! 

And then yesterday, this adorable little guy popped up.

He was wandering our neighborhood and hasn’t been claimed by anyone, and my entire family fell in love with him. So I bought some Puppy Chow and a leash and some doggie toys. And today, I spent most of my day taking him outside to try to potty or tossing tennis balls across the back yard in the rain.

Seriously, isn’t he just the cutest? And I didn’t even want a puppy! I mean, really! Ain’t nobody got time for that!

And this girl really, really wanted a pet. She’s been begging. BEGGING! And the other kids were oohing and aahing. And then my husband held him and was all like, “Awwww, he is cute.” And I knew it was over.

And I’m Ok with losing this battle. Because, really – look at him.

]]> http://livingingraceland.com/2013/05/06/puppy-love/feed/ 0 gracelandjenn photo-2 photo-39 photo photo-1 http://livingingraceland.com/2013/05/03/a-nester-not-a-nomad/ http://livingingraceland.com/2013/05/03/a-nester-not-a-nomad/#comments Fri, 03 May 2013 14:00:13 +0000 gracelandjenn http://livingingraceland.com/?p=962 Continue reading »

I am not a nomad.  That is the profound lesson I have learned in the past few weeks. I do not enjoy packing up and moving on. Even if the place I’m moving on to is fabulous – and the house we just moved into is fabulous, beyond our expectations.

I am a nester. I like being settled. I don’t mind the dust lodged into the corners of a room from years of life in that place.

I don’t know how the nomads do it! Well, I’m guessing the nomads aren’t English majors with boxes and boxes of books to lug around. And I’m guessing they don’t have a wee bit of a shoe addiction. And I’m guessing they don’t have Rubbermaid tubs and under-the-bed organizers marked “Memories,” filled with photos and children’s art projects and the hand-written note their oldest gave them when she was six and the homemade gift certificates the children made for Christmas gifts and the collar that still has tufts of much-loved and much-missed Pepper-dog stuck in the folds. I’m guessing the nomads aren’t trying to cart around the antique pantry they bought during the first year of marriage or the stack of quilts lovingly made by grandmothers and great-grandmothers.

It is exhausting to sort through the trash and junk and pack up the precious memories and the functional items that help get us through our days. And even if you haven’t loved,loved,LOVED the actual house, you have memories and emotions attached to it. So moving is just plain exhausting on various levels.

And once you finish sorting out the junk and packing up the good stuff, you have to actually move it all! And then you have to figure out where to put it all in the new place. And it’s just So. Much. Work.

So, here I sit amidst boxes, ready to nest again. Ready to find places for everything. Ready to make this place a home. Ready to settle in.

But first, I need to rest a bit. Because being a little bit nomadic wore me out. I just need a little time to rest and write and sip some coffee from a favorite mug and snuggle under one of the quilts I’ve carried along to each new house.

Yeah . . . I am sooooo not a nomad.

 

 

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Do you ever feel that way? Exhausted from all that life demands. Weary.

Lately, my mind keeps returning to this sweet Bible verse

Then Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.’

And so I wearily stumble back to Jesus. I need His rest.

Come on; stumble with me. We’ll hold each other up and help each other along. Jesus is gentle and He will give us rest for our weary souls. And I do need His rest. Because I’m tired. Deep in my bones, deep in my soul – tired.

Will you come with me to Jesus for rest?

Years ago, I thought my uterus might fall out in a back kitchen of the Opryland Hotel. It’s a long story, but I had a uterine prolapse and I’d been waiting for my body to heal itself, for everything to go back up where it was supposed to. But that wasn’t happening. And just before I went to a conference in Nashville, my doctor had told me we’d give it about one more month and then we’d need to start talking about a hysterectomy. And that wasn’t at all what my overly-emotional self wanted to hear.

In Nashville, after being on my feet all day, I was in excruciating pain. And my girlfriends and I were trying to take a shortcut to the vendor displays so we could buy some CDs that were just available right that very second. So we were running. And somehow we ended up in a kitchen. And I may or may not have been holding myself inappropriately as I ran because it truly felt like all my insides were about to be birthed right there in the kitchen of a fancy-schmancy hotel. And that would have just been embarrassing. Right?

And when we finally got back to our rooms, I was crying. It hurt. Physically, it hurt because it really did feel like everything was falling out. But it also hurt emotionally. I had prayed and begged God to heal me. And He hadn’t done what I’d wanted. And I didn’t understand why. Plus, there was the matter of running through a fancy hotel holding my crotch like a really bad Michael Jackson impersonator.

And right there, in the midst of my crying and feeling sorry for myself and questioning why, one of my dear friends simply said, “He has never let you down before.”

And the truth of her words were balm to my soul. I held onto that truth in the hard few months to follow as I did have that very unwanted hysterectomy. And those words echoed through my head during many hard times over the next four or five years. Remember God’s faithfulness. He has never let you down before. 

Last week when my husband was two miles away from the explosions in Boston, a new friend texted me. I was watching the news and getting more and more worked up. I felt like all my emotions were on high-speed in the cute red blender on my kitchen counter. In the course of our back-and-forth texts, she typed, “He’s there for a reason on THIS day!” And just like that, my frantic heart settled. She pulled the blender plug right out of the wall. She spoke truth, and it soothed my worried soul. There are no accidents with God. He is good, and He has a reason for everything He allows.

I am so grateful for friends who speak truth to me. Friends who remind me of God’s faithfulness and His character during difficult times.

Are you having a bad day? A bad week? A bad season of life? Please, let me remind you — you can trust in God’s faithfulness and in His character.

Do you have a friend like this? Someone who gently speaks truth into your life? 

Personally, the past four weeks have been absolutely exhausting. A broken elbow, a cut head, having to find a new place to live, a broken van, a husband out of town for three of the four weeks, a busy schedule, a shooting at our local mall, school lockdowns, a husband in Boston on Monday two miles from the explosions, and now half the family has strep throat. Whew!

It can feel like everything is spinning out of control, like the bad is overtaking the good. When we’re watching the news on TV and watching the frightening scroll of our Twitter feeds and seeing link after link of scary stuff or horrific pictures on our Facebook pages, it can feel like the evil and sadness just keep coming in wave after wave.

Yesterday, as the ticker tape scroll of bad events of the past month played a continual loop through my mind, I thought - I bet this is what Peter felt like when he was walking on the water toward Jesus & then looked down! 

Matthew tells about this in chapter 14. In the middle of a very frightening storm, Jesus walked on the water toward his disciples’ boat. In faith, Peter got out of the boat and walked to Jesus — until he saw the wind whipping up the waves. When he set his focus on the storm, he was overcome with fear. He started to sink.

During weeks like this – or months like this – it’s easy to focus on the storm. To feel like the bad news is crashing against us like angry waves in a storm. To feel like the constant stream of negativity is beating us down, like tornadic winds whipping around us in every direction. It’s easy to feel like we’re sinking, about to drown.

But every time I start to feel that way — every.single.time — I get a reminder from somewhere — a text from a friend, a song on the radio, a posting on Facebook, a timely passage in my daily devotion book — I get a reminder to look up. Look up. Take my eyes off the wind and the waves and focus on Jesus. And when I do, peace gently washes over me and settles into the worry-crevices of my soul. And I do not feel the waves and wind beating against me. Instead, I sense His presence. His presence of peace.

Isaiah 26:3 is one of my favorite Bible verses - You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You because he trusts in You. 

When I fix my mind on Jesus, perfect peace envelopes me. My troubled soul exhales and my body relaxes.

Are you feeling overwhelmed with bad news this week? Are you watching the news and feeling frightened and worried and like evil is winning? Can you feel the waves and wind beating you down, causing you to sink?

Look up! Fix your gaze on Jesus and keep walking.

On a side note, my husband is in Boston right now. He is safely in his hotel, but I must say – I would feel a whole lot better if he weren’t in Boston at all. I had no idea this morning that I would need this verse before the day ended. I love when my Father goes before me and prepares the way by meeting my needs before I’m even aware of them. 

On Friday, the schools in my town had to go on lockdown. The children were never in danger, but there was a dangerous situation in another public place so the schools were locked down. One of my boys had difficulty sleeping Sunday night and did not want to go to school Monday morning. He is tough and stoic and claims the sleeplessness and desire to stay home were not at all related to Friday’s events. And maybe it wasn’t . . .

But after praying for him all morning, I made a special visit to see him at lunchtime on Monday. I embarrassed him by hugging him. In front of his friends. I whispered secret messages in his ear while he opened his carton of chocolate milk. And I slipped this notecard into the pocket of his favorite hoodie –

I told him he could read if if he felt afraid or anxious. He assured me he would not feel afraid or anxious, but he’d read it anyway.

And I wasn’t going to tell y’all about this, but then it occurred to me — maybe one of you is feeling afraid or anxious. Maybe you need a promise from God to tuck in the pocket of your mind or your heart. Maybe you need a little reminder that the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. You are never alone.

Be strong. Be courageous. Life is scary sometimes, but God never leaves you to handle the scary stuff alone.

When I was pregnant with my first child, there was this teeny tiny building in the nearby Food Lion parking lot. Bahama Snow Shack. They sold the most incredible shaved ice. The ice was perfectly shaved, exactly the right texture. The flavors were just sweet enough without being too syrupy. Strawberry. Piña colada. Aaaaaahhh. It was a tiny bit of heaven in my mouth.

I craved the delicious goodness of Bahama Snow Shack. Spring was unseasonably hot that year. I was enormously pregnant. And I made near-daily visits to that little shack.

In the interest of helping our budget, I attempted to substitute popsicles for the Snow Shack’s tasty creations. No brand of popsicle could compete with a giant cup of flavored ice shavings. I borrowed an ice shaver and tried to create my own little Snow Shack in my goldenrod yellow leftover-70′s kitchen. It just wasn’t the same. Nothing quite satisfied my deep craving for tropically-flavored, perfectly-shaved ice like the little building on the outskirts of the Food Lion parking lot.

When I was pregnant with one of the boys, I desperately wanted this chicken dish from a Brazilian restaurant about an hour away. I tried to satisfy that craving for spiciness with tacos and nachos. I searched the internet for recipes and attempted to re-create that flavorful, spicy dish at home. Nothing could satisfy that craving except that exact dish from that exact restaurant.

I’ve been thinking lately. We are all made with this unyielding craving for deep unconditional, perfect love. We are created with a profound desire to be fully known and fully loved. A holy discontentment. A gaping hole in our souls. And the only thing that will truly satisfy this craving is God Himself. 

We try to satisfy this craving with all sorts of other things. People who don’t believe and accept Jesus look elsewhere to satisfy this desire. But believers do it too. We try to fill this hole with things – we shop, we decorate, we keep up with the Joneses. We try to fill it with degrees and jobs, with popularity and acceptance. We eat. We drink. We seek fun and excitement. We want our friends, our families, our marriages to fill us up. We think sex or being desired will satisfy this longing. We may even serve and study and work hard to be good and do good, thinking this will surely satiate our souls.

I do it too. My restless soul wanders looking for fulfillment. Not necessarily in bad places. But any time I try to satisfy this soul-craving with anything other than Jesus Himself, my hunger won’t be assuaged.

As Pascal said,

There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, made known through Jesus.

Just like a popsicle is a pretty sorry substitute for the delicious tastiness of a Bahama Snow Shack shaved ice, anything other than Jesus is a poor replacement for our deep soul craving. We are made for Him.

* Photo credit: Matthew / Foter.com / CC BY-SA