Not Enough

So remember a few weeks ago when I wrote about the darkness? It was bad. It had been bad for a while now. I think I thought I was hiding it better than I had been but it was there BIG time.

Once I finally admitted how bad things were I floundered around for a few days trying to figure out what to do. Then one day I just decided to get up. I decided I was the only one who could pull myself up out of that hole…

So I started paying attention to what I was filling my head with. I started carving out time for myself. I started caring. Let me tell you finding time for me has been the hardest part. I’ve actually been getting myself up around 4:40 every morning. I go to the gym (most mornings) then I come home and have time to spend some quality time in the Word. It has also helped me not feel so stressed and rushed in the mornings.

Another thing I’ve been doing is meal prepping on the weekends. It has helped SO much! All we have to do is grab a meal and read the directions … but that’s a whole other post!

So I’ve also been reading a lot! I’ve grabbed the people whose words are good, whose words breathe life and I’ve been saturating my brain with them. And you know what? It’s helped. I feel better. Even on hard days, I feel like I’m in a good place.

Things are still hard. I still feel like I’m in this long process of losing my mother and there are days when I don’t really want to care or try, but I’m working on giving myself some grace on those days. There are mornings when I didn’t even get home until 9 the night before … my alarm goes off and I just want to sleep. I’m working on giving myself grace on those days. There are days when I NEED a cheeseburger if I’m going to make it through and you know what? I’m working on giving myself grace on those days.

Why is grace so hard? Why do I usually offer it so freely to others and have such a hard time with offering it to myself?

I want to believe the absolute best about people. I want to believe there is still good in this world. I want to offer 2^nd and 94^th chances for people to turn it around because I’ve been offered the same. But when it comes to giving myself that same chance … well … it’s just hard.

I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about grace lately. I’m currently doing two online bible studies and I would encourage you if you aren’t partaking to get on board. Every morning you get the devotional sent to your inbox. They are not laborious devotions with mountains of questions to answer and passages to look up, although those have their place as well, but in this busy season of my life I need simple. I need the heavy lifting already done for me. I just need to soak it in and let it saturate.

She Reads Truth (http://shereadstruth.com/) has monthly plans. It gives you scripture and then it gives the devotion, followed up with some application at the end. The other one I adore right now is If:Equip (http://www.ifequip.com). This one is just scripture, that’s it. Then a short two minute video to pull out some good stuff at the end. Just soooo good. Trust me on this, have I ever led you wrong here?

Okay but back to grace. So this morning in my reading I found this gem…

Grace is the great leveler — we all need it, heaping amounts of it, all the time.

We ALL need it. All the time. Do you know who is included in that we? Yep, us. We need it. It is our life blood. It is our fight song… we need Grace.

 

 

Do you know what the most beautiful thing about this is … it’s ours for the taking. One of the hardest things for me is coming to realization that I CANNOT earn this grace. I cannot be good enough, smart enough, studious enough, put together enough, feed my kid all the healthy meals enough, take care of myself enough, protect and guard my marriage enough, treat my family lovingly enough … anything enough to earn this grace. I CANNOT earn it. I have to take it.

That’s hard for me.  I would bet I’m not alone here.

This life is hard. It knocks us down … hard. But through it all… God does not abandon us. He does not leave us. I love this …

When we are faithful and when we are faithless, our God reigns. Whatever the circumstances we find ourselves in, He is the one true King.

Gah so good! It just takes the pressure off. Do you need the load lightened today … there is hope. Don’t give up. Keep fighting, keep going and know that our God reigns.