Grace

Sometimes I feel like I'm never good enough. I want so many things to be perfect and when they are not I feel like a failure. I want to accomplish so many things but in my day to day life it seems like I'm getting nowhere, just spinning my wheels. On the one hand it's good for me to have goals and ideals to work towards. On the other hand how do I find the balance? As I do one thing I wonder if I should be doing another. I'm constantly wondering "Is this the best use of my time in this moment?"

The answer I seek is Grace.

I try to have grace for others. And yet I don't always remember to have grace for myself. I don't remember to recieve God's Grace. I can be the cruelest taskmaster to myself. And yet God knows my strenghts and weaknesses. He knows when and where I will stumble and fall. He's never disappointed in me. He's there extending his hand of grace but I don't always reach up an take it. Instead I berate and beat myself up for making mistakes, wasting time, pursuing the wrong things or not being a better...well...everything...Mother, Wife, Daughter, Sister...you name it.

God is not berating or beating me up. He is encouraging me to keep going. He is proud of me! Like we are proud of our kids when they accomplish any new thing, no matter how small. He is proud of me for simply finishing something I started. He's proud when I don't allow frustration to cause me to yell at my toddler. He's proud when I keep the house clean, or do someone a small kindness. He's proud of the so-called 'little' things. The world would make us dissatisfied because we are not doing something 'big'. But God's 'Big' and the world's 'big' are two different things. I should not call bad what He has called good. I should not call little what He has called Big. And so in the little things of this world I try my best to do big things in Christ and am learning to have Grace for myself when I fall.

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness.'"

2 Corinthians 12:9a