Yet another Lent is coming to a close and last night, Good Friday, we wrote our sins on pieces of paper and hammered them into a cross with nails.
One of my boys mentioned that that sound...the sound of nails being hammered, would forever remind him of Jesus. That that sound would never be 'just another sound'.
I haven't talked much about this Lent except to say that this particular Lenten season has been more personal than usual...and that's true. This last year has been a learning year for me...a year in which I have questioned every thing about myself and why I was put on this earth.
I've always known, since the moment I first held my oldest, what my purpose was.
To be a mom.
And I've counted myself as blessed because I know so many who struggle with what their true purpose is...yet I was shown at such a young age. And that purpose has never changed. I was good at what I did...good at raising boys.
To be a mom.
And I've counted myself as blessed because I know so many who struggle with what their true purpose is...yet I was shown at such a young age. And that purpose has never changed. I was good at what I did...good at raising boys.
Until one day last year when suddenly I saw that I wasn't. One of my own had fallen off the grid, so to speak, and our family was in crisis.
I did what I do best...put all the pieces back together and held everyone together while wearing my bravest of brave faces. That guy that I like so much had the ability (it's a guy thing) to go to work and forget, for little bits of time, that life was 'normal'...whereas I did not have that skill. Not at all.
Slowly though, life returned back to normal. The same air we had been breathing in and out all along began to seem more fresh and clean. I watched God work. I listened to my son and we had long talks about the power of the Spirit. We talked about sin and forgiveness and what true repentance means...and about how we will, as sure as there are stars in the sky, sin all over again.
Healing began. Forgiveness happened. Life went on.
Life went on, but I had changed. I, too, was becoming aware of the Spirit inside of me. Working in me. Molding me. Changing me to the very core of my being.
I became aware that I'd been the one running the show. Not God...but me.
I became aware that I'd been the one running the show. Not God...but me.
And somewhere, between last Lent and this Lent, my eyes were being opened to God in a whole new way.
My purpose?
It's not about me.
Yet it's all about me...by the grace of God.
By the grace of God.
I AM a good mom...by the grace of God.
I AM raising sinners, who will continue to sin just the same as me and that guy that I like so much, but we are all forgiven...by the grace of God.
I AM a child of God, loved unconditionally...by the grace of God.
This Lent, my focus has been on grace. Not on giving something up or taking something away, but on grace.
And not just ON grace...but on ACCEPTING His grace.
It's not about me. It's about God. I'm just his vessel...and I'm learning to let Him lead and to give Him the glory in all that I do.
So tomorrow when the sun rises...and the Son rises, I will too. Whole. Forgiven. Allowing Him to lead me, one step at a time, as I try hard as I might to carry out His will.
By the grace of God.
=0)
(the pictures? a morning stroll around the 'hood with that guy that I like so much, followed by lunch in our garden. Blessed Easter, my friends!)
(the pictures? a morning stroll around the 'hood with that guy that I like so much, followed by lunch in our garden. Blessed Easter, my friends!)
I often laugh so hard things come out my nose with your posts or find myself welling up with tears. This post...I just wept (gosh, it's a good thing I live alone). Not sure if your brain went there, but as I was reading and scrolling and could only see the first picture on my screen, all I could think of was slats (sp? I even tried looking it up) in a bridge across some murky water. My word, how the water is less murky and the bridge appears to have slats in place. Grace indeed. What a Lenten season. WOW.
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