grace

Thinking about grace again today...

...it's beautiful when it's extended to us and unbelievable, shocking, undeserved. A heavy debt we know we can never re-pay...paid.

and yet

...it's overpoweringly painful to be the one extending grace to someone. I think i've come to the conclusion that grace is really something we borrow directly from the hand of God. It's not humanly natural or comfortable. It weighs heavily as we struggle to let the words fall from the lips. "i forgive" It is God in us speaking those words...it has to be. ...Is that why it's so striking when we see grace in all it's forms being extended? We are seeing the character of God reflecting through the lives of mere clay? Shocking that he would live in us, move us, change us, give us something so precious... as grace.

Little Mama's Progress

Curt and I had a long conversation about my post yesterday while laying in bed. He still hasn't read it but for the record, disagrees that what I experience has anything to do with being a perfectionist. I'm still struggling with what to call it then... If I'm not a perfectionist, if that term is to be reserved for truly glistening homes and sticklers, then what am I? This sounds like the playground taunt "I know you are but what am I? haa haa! I guess for now I will settle for "Self pant-kicker with guilt-ridden worrier tendencies". Whatever the case may be, it is the reason that whenever I read "Little Pilgrims Progress" and I get to the part where Christian lays his burden at the foot of the cross, I sob like a lost 3 year old. Nothing like a flood of grace is there?!

perfectionism

I was going to comment along with the last blogs' entries about "guilt" but it started getting long. The root of that kind of guilt is really perfectionism isn't it!? When my mom first started talking about "perfectionism" about 10 years ago, my first thought was "Well that's for sure not me! Just look at my house and the way I dress. I'm definitely not perfect!" I thought perfectionism was an outward thing. Over the years I've learned that it's not about how things look from the outside but what is going on inside the head and heart that determines your level of perfectionism. If you do things well and it still doesn't feel like you did all you could have, should have, would have. If your child is doing his/her best and yet you feel the need to continue pushing...not teaching... pushing. If reality finds it almost impossible to meet your expectations... you are a perfectionist. For me it is most definitely about letting go of perfection not only for myself but for my kids. Whether it be my agonizing over Darren's epilepsy. hah! What will agony do but cause more agony and give him a complex. One of my children struggled with math, another with reading...should i feel like a failure over that? No! Those problems are resolving, but it's taken time. What if it wasn't getting any better? I know I sure didn't perform straight A's all the way through my schooling. How can I expect that from my children? And even if I was a straight A student. Does that mean that my children will be too? Goals are great. I was raised to believe they are necessary and I do have high aspirations for each of my children but when life throws a curve ball, I want to respond in a way that says to my kids "It's o.k....life will go on. It's not the end of the world and you don't have to beat yourself over every difficulty or seeming "failure". Especially as homeschooling moms I think we attach our children's successes and failures to ourselves. (I'll have to blog on this as well I think! hah!-so much to say!) So dangerous for both mother and child. My deepest desire after all isn't that my children would be geniuses, gorgeous, talented, fashionable... or even completely happy. My deepest desire for them is that they would know and LOVE their Heavenly Father and want to please Him... not me... or some horribly high standard they invent to beat themselves with. Life is too precious and short. But God's Grace is "fully sufficient". ;) -j