flawed.

{found via pinterest from instagram}

my kids are still napping. they have been for a while, and i don't want to wake them up. clearly they need to sleep, but if i'm honest about it, i enjoy the quiet. letting them sleep is as much for me as it is for them.

especially today when my phone decided that an update was no fun, and it wanted to freak out instead. but that's a different discussion altogether.

some days are really great days, but some days are really hard. we have lots of great days, but on far too many days i feel like what i'm doing doesn't matter. i know it does, but it doesn't feel like it does. i cherish the sweet moments i have with my kids, but there are also times when they're screaming, not sharing, poking each other in the face, and stealing toys from one another. and those moments are completely and utterly exhausting.

you guys, we all struggle. parent or not, we struggle. everyone is fighting a battle. i feel pressure to pretend i don't struggle, but i do. i feel pressure that every moment should be instagrammable or pinterest-worthy.
they're not.

sure, we have plenty of great moments. and i don't discount those in the least. but it's not every day, every moment, all the time.

i hung out with a friend a few weeks ago whose oldest just turned two. and while we were hanging out her oldest went back and forth on the same thing about three times in the space of 90 seconds. and she looked at me and said "i'm about to lose my ****"

and we've all been there. every single one of us. in fact i've said that exact phrase to myself about 100 times since then.

kids are beautiful, fantastic little miracles. they're also human. and that means they're flawed.

of course grown-ups are flawed too. and sometimes it's easier to look past the kids' flaws because they aren't necessarily old enough to know better yet.

i'm jumping a bit here, but stay with me -
i recently heard a quote in passing that essentially said: we in the church have to leave space for people to be human.

just think about that for a second. Jesus epitomized grace. but too often we give ourselves a nosebleed just so we have an excuse to look down our nose at someone else.

i'm critical because i'm part of it. i'm indicting myself just as much as anyone else. you know that saying "people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"? we should all live in glass houses. aren't you sick of throwing stones?

i am. sure sometimes it's easier than doing what we're called to do. it's easier to pick up a stone and just heave it and pretend that the person on the receiving end isn't a person. a person who has value and worth because God created everyone. and moreover he created each of us in His image.

my kids are tiny little image-bearers of the God of the universe. i am an image-bearer of the God of the universe. so are you. but we are all still flawed. we are still human. and i have to find a way - we have to find a way - to love flawed, imperfect image-bearers. we have to find a way to meet people where they are, and love them as they are whether they change or not.

Jesus didn't put any caveats on "love your neighbor as yourself."

brutal, right? just brutal.

it's pretty easy to recognize these things. it's the doing them that is so difficult. they're so simple, and so very difficult all at the same time.

in my head i constantly come back to - there but for the grace of God, go i. it's really easy for us to say this in a haughty voice. to say it while once again looking down our nose. but try saying it in a humble one.
try it and think about the words and what they actually mean.

there is nothing proud about grace.
because it's grace.
the very definition means it's nothing that you or i did.
nothing at all.

let me repeat that because i need to remember it. it's nothing i did. nothing i did. nothing.
nothing. nothing. nothing.
we try to take credit for far too much of the good, and lay blame for far too much of the bad.

so as you walk around and deal with the people that are rude, and arrogant; the people that act like complete imbeciles; the people who have absolutely no regard for anyone but me, me, me - remember that we are those people from time to time. and the only reason we are not, when we are not, is because of the grace of God.

there but for the grace of God, go i.
there but for the grace of God, go i.


there but for the grace of God,
go i.

may we walk in His grace extending it as we go.

xoxo