Category Archives: mistakes

Using My Mistakes

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I am very good at parent guilt.
Parenting
How to parent?
I can second-guess with the best of them.
I have no idea what I'm doing
I enjoy planning out our days (okay, okay, our years), and no matter what decisions I make, I’m usually half convinced they were the wrong ones.
Often I reassure myself with the notion that God can make up for my mistakes, that He can help my precious ones survive in spite of all the poor choices I make.
Yet recently I was struck in the heart with a very different perspective.
God loves them
God can use my mistakes to make my girls into the women He wants them to be.
The idea that God already knows the mistakes I will make with my children and already has plans to use those mistakes to mold my girls into beautiful women who love Him and love others??
Using me
Well.
Using my mistakes
That is beyond beautiful.
It is grace. Pure grace.
It is a breath of freedom, a release from the lie that I have to parent perfectly in order for my children to grow up loving God. Ensuring the end for my children is not my job. My job is to be as faithful as I can and then to relax, being confident in God’s love for my girls.
A love that works for the best for them. A love that not only wants the best for them but is powerful enough to achieve that best.
Loving them
It allows me to be present and just enjoy my girls without having to worry about their future.
Ah.
Let’s go play.
Let's play
I am not sovereign over my children – God is. And God will use every aspect of my human parenting, even my sins and failures, to shape my children into who He desires them to be, for the sake of His kingdom. (Parenting is Your Highest Calling and Eight Other Myths… by Leslie Fields)

We Eat One Another Alive

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Why do we eat one another alive?
 Stalking
It happens all the time.  Just look at what happens any time a Christian leader is found out or, worse, confesses.  Just look at what happens whenever a Christian public figure says something that is outside of our comfort zone.  Just look at what happens so many times when someone in our own churches does or says something we don’t agree with.
We talk, we rant, we fill up the air with our words.  And our words are not of grace.
It is too easy to speak harshly within the anonymous confines of the internet.  We forget at times that those on the receiving end of our arrows are as beloved as we are.
Why do we do it?
Fear, perhaps.
We fear that others will think poorly of us or of our faith if we do not speak out quickly and harshly against whatever was wrong.  We fear that we will be viewed as the same if we speak words of love instead of words of condemnation.
We fear, perhaps, that we are the same deep down inside, and we do not want anyone to know the truth.
Yet the irony of it all is that the very One we are trying to defend is the same One who shared meals, shared life with those who made the most public of mistakes.
Loving those with public mistakes
The irony is that the Bible is crammed full of one another verses…and not one of them mentions devouring one another.
Show kindness and mercy to one another.
Love one another.
Outdo one another in showing honor.
Welcome one another.
Bear with one another.
Be kind to one another.
Forgive one another.
These are just the beginning.
Jesus said that people would know that we follow Him by our love.  Too often love is not what we show to the world.  I confess that perhaps I would not think very highly of Jesus if all that I knew of Him was what I read on the blogs and Facebook pages of His followers.
May God help us.
May the God of love and grace teach us how to get rid of our motto of We eat one another alive.
May He instead change our hearts to adopt the motto of We never leave a fallen comrade behind.

Art Credits: Lion photo by Juliane Riedl; Christ and Samaritan Woman painting by Henryk Siemiradzki

How to Give Yourself Grace

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I’ve written about it before in this space, but since I will never act perfectly until the day I see my Lord face to face, I will just have to continue to write about it in hopes that this act of writing will somehow help me.  Perhaps it will help someone else as well.
Grace
I want so desperately to follow Jesus without having to fight against myself; I want to do the right thing at the right time without a raging internal struggle; I just want it to be easier for me to obey.  Will you join me over at Embracing Grace to talk about the grace God gives us even when we can’t give that grace to ourselves?  I’d love to meet you over there.
(http://embracinggrace.net/2013/11/how-to-give-yourself-grace/)

Why You Should Make Mistakes With Your Kids

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Our middle daughter (can I say “middle” when the youngest is still inside my belly?) turned two years old this week.

As I watch her and her four-year-old sister growing up so incredibly quickly, I sometimes start thinking about how much of what I do, both with them and in front of them, influences who they become.

This thought almost makes me start hyperventilating. I start feeling almost physically weighed down with the pressure to do things perfectly with my children.

I was recently reminded, however, of how much God loves these girls. He loves them even more than I love them. That idea is difficult for me to wrap my mind around, considering how deep is my love for them, but it is truth. 

God loves my girls more than I do, and He wants them to fall in love with Him even more than I want that to happen. 

And if God wants something to happen, well…

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all–how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? ~ Romans 8.31-32

This is, like most issues in my life, a refusal to trust, a difficulty in letting go of my pride. I have to trust God with the hearts and lives of my children and I have to realize that I am not the most important influence on them. 

God is more than able to make up for my myriad of mistakes.

In fact, I am learning that it is good for me to make mistakes.

When I make mistakes with my little ones, when I mess up in front of them, I have the chance (if only I took it more consistently!) to show them how to make mistakes. I have the opportunity to teach them how to apologize, how to ask for forgiveness, how to ask God to change your heart and help you to do better.

How to do this, how to wisely use this chance, is something that is indelibly imprinted in my heart: it is the image of my dad asking me (a tiny, humble kid!) for my forgiveness. His actions taught me a beautiful lesson.

By messing up in front of my girls, I can show them that God loves them no matter what they do. 

My eldest is already learning this lesson. Every night, as part of her four-year-old routine, she says, “Mommy? Did you know that God loves you even when you disobey?” And I respond “Yes, darling. Isn’t that a beautiful thing?”

This is what I want to teach my girls. That God loves them no matter what. That we can’t ever be good enough and that is why Jesus came to rescue us, why the Holy Spirit has to work in our hearts to heal them. I want them to rest secure in God’s love, enjoying His presence and loving Him right back.

I sit in awe and praise God that in His mercy and grace, He uses my mistakes, my imperfect and messed-up self, to show my girls just that.

God’s Passing Notes

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I am really tired of getting things wrong, of feeling ashamed of myself.

I didn’t speak when I should have spoken because I was afraid of someone’s opinion of me.

I spoke sarcastically to my husband in front of several friends.



I chose to read story books rather than to spend time with God.

I yelled at my babies. While we were praying!

I often have a really hard time loving myself. I feel frustrated with my inability to obey, to love, to be perfect. I often have a very low opinion of myself.

I am fairly certain that I am not the only one who feels like this.

I want to share a truth that was recently spoken to me: Your opinion of yourself doesn’t matter.

Does that sound hard? It is true.

I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself…it is the Lord who judges me.  ~ I Corinthians 4.3

It doesn’t matter what you think of yourself, whether or not you approve of yourself. Only God’s opinion of you matters.

That’s worth saying again.

The only thing that matters is whether or not God approves of you.

This then is…how we set our hearts at rest in His presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts and He knows everything. ~ I John 3.19-20

And the best news of all? The news that fills up my heart and gives me peace?

If you are in Christ, God does approve of you!

Just read Romans 8:

vs 1: Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…

vs 33: Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? (Yes, this includes bringing charges against yourself!) It is God who justifies.

vs 38-39: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (italics mine)

When I am playing a difficult piece on the piano, sometimes I play the wrong notes. When that happens, rather than getting upset, making horrid faces and just quitting, my mother taught me to simply improvise the wrong notes into the next bit of music. These wrong notes are then given a new name: passing notes – notes that don’t really fit but can become fitting.

For me, one of the most breathtaking things about being a Christian is that God can take our worst mistakes and turn them into His passing notes. That’s what God is promising to do for us in the end, and it can start now. And if you haven’t heard that before, it’s time you did. ~ Jeremy Begbie

So. Take a deep breath. Quit thinking about yourself and your mistakes.

Trust God’s approval of you in Christ. Allow Him to turn those mistakes into His beautiful passing notes that lead us to become who God intended for us to be.