Happy New Year..a few days late!
Welcome 2015.
Ready or not...we are already half way through the month of January.
Blows my mind, really. Leaves my head whirling a bit. But truly, HE gives more GRACE.
Journal entries for me are very personal. Extremely personal. Most of my journal entries, I would rather die than share on my extremely public blog.
But this one just keeps saying, "Share me. Maybe someone else needs to hear this too. Maybe someone else will experience GRACE in a new way on a daily basis through your thoughts and lessons." So here goes. Trembling but willing to share and hoping someone else will be encouraged as I have.
Saturday, January 3, 2015
A new year. A fresh start. New opportunities. New Challenges. New joys. New sorrows.
More than anything, MORE GRACE
NEW GRACE
FRESH GRACE
I look forward with anticipation to where HIS GRACE will take me, my husband, my children, my future, my relationship with Himself. How HIS GRACE will move us forward, ever growing, ever being stretched. Ever falling more and more in love with Him.
I have many goals for myself this year. Some are the same year after year: exercise more, drink more water and less "other," complain less and thank more, read more books, research less on Pinterest and actually use my hundreds of saved "pins," finish my kids (or in Noah's case, START) photo albums.
I have a few news one for 2015: do a detox program (never done that before!), seriously change my eating habits, get more English students, faithfully support my husband through our continued bout of unemployment, our "wilderness walk."
But mostly, I want GRACE. I want to claim His grace. I want to LIVE GRACE. I want to freely, graciously give GRACE as I've so freely been given. I want to pray Grace, breathe Grace, speak Grace.
It is a marvelous, incredible privilege to be raised in a Christian family, raised in church, taught faithfully the Christian doctrines, study Theology at the college level. But there is danger in that as well. Danger that it becomes too familiar, too well versed, too educated. It becomes mundane. Normal. "just a part of life."
Some recent and overwhelmingly painful experiences in my husband and I's lives have shown me some ugly things about myself. About my heart. I need more GRACE: in my heart, in my soul, in my conversation, in my responses. I need to love with grace, forgive with grace, develop healthy boundaries with grace. I need more GRACE. I want to breathe grace. Whisper grace. Smell like grace. Ooze grace.
That's what He did for me. Does for me on an hourly, momently, secondly basis. His Grace covers all of me, all of my marriage, all of my parenting..or lack of it. It covers all my sin, my ugliness, my unending limitations, my lack of LOVE for HIM.
So, in 2015, my main personal goal is:
MORE GRACE
NEW GRACE
FRESH GRACE
one.day.at.a.time!
End of journal entry.
I have stumbled and fell already so many times this year, but because of what God gave to me the day I wrote this entry I am seeing breakthroughs in my weary, tired heart. His grace truly is sufficient. When I think I can't get out of bed because of the toddler's continued (and in some ways worse) night wakings, I mumble "GRACE" and get out of bed. When the heat in our tiny apartment and massive city is overwhelming and exhausting, I have been able to keep going through my daily chores, praying for grace for one more hot hour. When the days continue to add up (136 to be exact) in our journey of unemployment, His Grace is truly good for one more, hard, desperate day. When I think I will explode if the big girl makes one more rude demand or begs one more time to go back to school (we are on the countdown...21 days to go!) or spills one more glass of juice or calls my name one more time, I whisper Grace and bend down and wrap her in my arms and tell her I will show her grace because God has shown me so much grace.
We continue to hard, unseen, often unrewarding journey of parenting two extremely busy children who need SPACE and have so little of it. And day after day, I am seeing Grace at work in my home, but mostly in my heart.
If you feel hopeless, like nothing will ever change, the challenges outweigh the victories and you want to crawl in bed and just cry for hours and then sleep (uninterrupted, of course!) for several more hours, I get that. He gets that. And HE GIVES MORE GRACE. Hang in there. If you are hanging by a thread, make sure that thread is made of GRACE. Because you will survive. You will make it through. If you hang on to GRACE!
Hanging on to GRACE,
Jama
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