Grace, to me, is spirituality. For grace is love and love is grace.
A whole new world of spirituality opened to me through my dear friend Betty. Before this spiritual journey, I daily am grateful to find myself on, spirituality was just a side to the main course of life. Life was the steak and spirituality was the wilted salad that you picked at because it was on your plate and you knew it was the green, healthy stuff that makes the meal complete. Betty awakened within me the beautiful fact that spirituality is not the wilted salad I had been introduced to, throughout my life, but the appetite itself. It is the source of wanting to eat at all. Giving flavor, desire, passion, reason to fine dine in life. Betty showed me this beauty of grace by love, by little words strung together. Like, "Everything you feel is valid," "you have a right to feel exactly what you need to." "You are amazing" and "I am daily grateful for you" My spirituality became alive when I realized it all started with an inner grace. Grace for me. I starting giving myself more and more grace and I started to see these other beautiful women giving themselves grace too. I began to realize that if anyone needs grace, it's a mother.
Jim Gaffigen said, "You know what its like having a fourth child? Well, imagine you are drowning and then someone hands you a baby."
I think that is how it is with your first child. It's not like I was necessarily swimming before, I just wasn't aware of how much under water I was living. And then they hand me my child. All of a sudden I am not only looking for her instruction manual but mine as well.
This little being, over the last 15 years, has been showing me how inept I am at this little thing called life. Four kids later and I find myself drowning, not even sure where the surface is anymore. There is nothing like having four little people, who daily, let you know just how under water you are currently living. They don't come out and sing of your dire state but they sure do make it clear.
Like my beautiful 15 year old who doesn't see her own inner and outward beauty, or the need to keep her room from being a fire hazard 312 days of the year.
Or my 12 year old that still has spastic energy of a two year old and still after 10 years of working with him remains to have no inner tools on how to direct his energy in a nondestructive manner.
My 8 year old that permits herself to worry so much over the "what ifs" that she freezes in her tears. 8 years old...
Or my 4 year old that believes clothes are optional and shoes are completely unnecessary, no matter the location or weather.
Not to mention the forever quest for clean clothes, hugs, eye contact, dinner, connections, homework, grocery shopping, laughter, baseball, games, encouraging words, good listeners, love and peace. And above all peace! It is four completely different personalities, emotional needs, physical demands yelling at you, all at once, all day, every day. Ya, I am going to drop the ball, even if I don't, I'm sure one of the kids will decide its a perfect time to grab one and chuck it (most likely at my head.)
I know that I can be friends with any mom who grabs a beer while exclaiming with defeat, "I really screwed up today." I think of Mary who raised sinless perfect Jesus. Despite a perfect kid I am sure Mary screwed up a bazillion times. I'm sure that she was so pissed at Jesus for not telling her where he was for 3 days, when he was 12, she probably cussed him out in the temple and then didn't speak to him for a week. Kids are like having your heart outside of yourself. Emotions run rampant when a large part of your heart is that far from your brain, your control, your self. Doing their own thing like they are not connected to your inner well being.
And so I discovered that grace is the bandaid we need. Grace to let everyone be the beautiful wreck of a masterpiece that they all are, starting with me.
A whole new world of spirituality opened to me through my dear friend Betty. Before this spiritual journey, I daily am grateful to find myself on, spirituality was just a side to the main course of life. Life was the steak and spirituality was the wilted salad that you picked at because it was on your plate and you knew it was the green, healthy stuff that makes the meal complete. Betty awakened within me the beautiful fact that spirituality is not the wilted salad I had been introduced to, throughout my life, but the appetite itself. It is the source of wanting to eat at all. Giving flavor, desire, passion, reason to fine dine in life. Betty showed me this beauty of grace by love, by little words strung together. Like, "Everything you feel is valid," "you have a right to feel exactly what you need to." "You are amazing" and "I am daily grateful for you" My spirituality became alive when I realized it all started with an inner grace. Grace for me. I starting giving myself more and more grace and I started to see these other beautiful women giving themselves grace too. I began to realize that if anyone needs grace, it's a mother.
Jim Gaffigen said, "You know what its like having a fourth child? Well, imagine you are drowning and then someone hands you a baby."
I think that is how it is with your first child. It's not like I was necessarily swimming before, I just wasn't aware of how much under water I was living. And then they hand me my child. All of a sudden I am not only looking for her instruction manual but mine as well.
This little being, over the last 15 years, has been showing me how inept I am at this little thing called life. Four kids later and I find myself drowning, not even sure where the surface is anymore. There is nothing like having four little people, who daily, let you know just how under water you are currently living. They don't come out and sing of your dire state but they sure do make it clear.
Like my beautiful 15 year old who doesn't see her own inner and outward beauty, or the need to keep her room from being a fire hazard 312 days of the year.
Or my 12 year old that still has spastic energy of a two year old and still after 10 years of working with him remains to have no inner tools on how to direct his energy in a nondestructive manner.
My 8 year old that permits herself to worry so much over the "what ifs" that she freezes in her tears. 8 years old...
Or my 4 year old that believes clothes are optional and shoes are completely unnecessary, no matter the location or weather.
Not to mention the forever quest for clean clothes, hugs, eye contact, dinner, connections, homework, grocery shopping, laughter, baseball, games, encouraging words, good listeners, love and peace. And above all peace! It is four completely different personalities, emotional needs, physical demands yelling at you, all at once, all day, every day. Ya, I am going to drop the ball, even if I don't, I'm sure one of the kids will decide its a perfect time to grab one and chuck it (most likely at my head.)
I know that I can be friends with any mom who grabs a beer while exclaiming with defeat, "I really screwed up today." I think of Mary who raised sinless perfect Jesus. Despite a perfect kid I am sure Mary screwed up a bazillion times. I'm sure that she was so pissed at Jesus for not telling her where he was for 3 days, when he was 12, she probably cussed him out in the temple and then didn't speak to him for a week. Kids are like having your heart outside of yourself. Emotions run rampant when a large part of your heart is that far from your brain, your control, your self. Doing their own thing like they are not connected to your inner well being.
And so I discovered that grace is the bandaid we need. Grace to let everyone be the beautiful wreck of a masterpiece that they all are, starting with me.
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