re-calibrating

Tonight, I breathe a deep sigh.

Five children are tucked in bed, the littlest ones sleeping and the bigger ones reading. Gabriel and Daniel are out at Monday Night Classes. Right now, it is quiet and it is peaceful and I am alone with my thoughts.

But earlier couldn't have been more different. Earlier was loud and earlier was chaotic and earlier was me saying faster than I was thinking, barking orders quicker than I could even process the necessity of them, caving to my emotions instead of Truth.

The other night she asks, "If someone were with you 24/7, would they still want to be like you?"

She didn't ask it in a, "Get your life together, honey!" sort of way, but in a, "Would they see Jesus in the midst of your everyday-ness," sort of way.

And I can't stop thinking about it.

This evening, before the husband arrived home and took the 20 minutes he had before needing to leave again to patch me up and put me back together, I was a hot mess. And that question quickened to my mind again and angry tears smarted in my eyes that it would even dare come into my consciousness in such a moment.

Why does the bar have to be set so high? I cry.

And sooner than I can even ask, I know why.

He has been reminding me often these past weeks.

So that you will know it isn't you that holds things together, and so that you will know it is My power that transforms you from the inside out.

Oh, but it stings. It stings to be reminded yet again of how just frail I am on my own; just how rotten and sick and  helpless. It stings to even be in this season of very practically coming face to face with my own physical limitations, of realizing once more just how finite my strength and stamina are.

In fact, it even shows me how little faith I have. Because at times like this I realize how much I doubt, how often I wonder, Can you really do what you say You will do with me, Lord?

The thing is, when I step back and I am honest and tearfully confess my unbelief and I ask Him how it will be different tomorrow, He reminds me that I am His. He reminds me that it is His Gospel at work in me that is the difference-maker. He reminds me that those things, those sins that I so often return to, have no power over me any more. He reminds me that He never tires of me throwing myself upon His mercies, again and again and again and again. He reminds me of how present a help He wants to be in times of distress and in times of weakness. He reminds me that peace is not order, it is not cleanliness, it is not meeting all the needs around me, it is not my having it together-- He is my peace.

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among who also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grave you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.