Moments in Grace

Our neighbors are moving.   And yesterday we said goodbye to the first friends we had made when we moved here.   They are not moving far but it will be harder to have play dates and for the kids to see each other.   We are sad to see them go.   We said goodbye with some tears.   Later in the day, the doorbell rings.   It is the neighbor girl bringing us a card.   Joy.   Just joy.   I think of all the neighborhood kids we have brought to church.   I think of all the kids we have prayed for and had over for Backyard Bible Clubs and the endless hours of our yard filled to overflowing with kids by the dozen.   And I am undone by grace. Because this was not my plan. Oh, I have spent years trying to protect my kids from the “world”, to keep them “safe”, to make sure they were doing the “right” things.   I endlessly questioned if they should even play with kids in the neighborhood and what about the b...

So maybe your days have been hard lately. Maybe just breathing seems hard.  Like your lungs can't seem to fill fully. Maybe you wake up every day and just...try...to...survive. Yeah, I know you. I've been there. Lately.  I've been there. Stressed out, crushed by life, drowning. Because last school year I thought I just might have a nervous breakdown.  And my only hope was that something, somewhere would change.  And one day into this school year I was a crying mess.  After one day.  Because everything bad about last year had followed me here.  Maybe you've been there? And the thing that you hoped in seems crushed?  The hope of easier is abandoned? Maybe you're not a homeschooling mother of six like me.  Maybe you don't have kids with learning struggles, processing problems and attention deficit. A toddler that screams nonstop and two other small boys that think wrestling is actually a school subjec...

The sky filtering from brilliant blue to softest pink as we make the two hour drive home from Grandma’s house, just me and the kids.   My thirteen year old is sitting up front and we are telling God stories, and he asks me to tell my best God story again, the one about how I got adopted into the family of the Great King.   It is a great story. And I can’t resist telling it.   I love to tell it.   It was the best day of my whole life.   The day Jesus rescued me, it was dramatic, and I tell again how my two friends Deb and Rach had been reaching out to me in all my darkness, loving me when I was so unlovable.   How they loved me when no one else did and I knew there are was something different in their lives, some kind of love that I desperately needed.   Love that I didn’t get from partying, relationships, or New Age spirituality.   Love that only Jesus could give. I tell how that Friday morning, on the way to class at co...