Tuesday's Kitchen Inspirations

I have this to the right of my cooktop on my island in my kitchen. (I'll show you the one I have on the other side another day...)  As I make pancakes every morning for the boys, I am blessed by this message from Lamentations.  It reminds me that every single day, God grants us grace and mercy over and over... and over and over.  What an amazing promise to start the day with!

Help Us Remember During this Hectic (yet Blessed) Season

 

Heavenly Father, Help us remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children...  

...or maybe a married mother of a 4-year-old hurrying to get home because said 4 year old was in the back seat throwing up in a paper bag.

 

Remind us, Lord, that the scary looking bum, begging for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!) is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can't make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.

 

Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together.

A friend of mine, Corey,  posted these statuses on her Facebook page this past week.  She is in my Sunday School class where we have been studying/discussing how we are called to show GRACE - not only during this blessed season, but throughout our lives.  I wrote about this a few weeks ago myself in Grace Filled. 

Thank you, Corey.  You have helped me remember. 

Grace-filled

Pardon me for saying this, but I didn't feel very graceful yesterday.  Wait, let me rephrase that:  I didn't feel very Grace-filled yesterday.  I know I should have.  Yesterday in Sunday School, we began a series called Christmas with Grace.  As of last month, I became one of the facilitators of our class.  The other leader and I were very excited that we would be spending 5-6 Sunday preparing ourselves for Christ's gift of Himself to us.

The focus this week follows:

The message of Christmas is God giving us what we deserved the least, and what we needed most: grace. While here on earth, Jesus extended grace to those around him constantly. As Christians, we need to learn to do the same with those around us. Nothing shapes the human heart like grace. 

John 1:14-18

But I did not feel very Grace-filled.  My children have been driving me absolutely crazy these past few days.  Bickering with each other, whining to us, the oldest saying, every ten minutes, "But Mom, YOU said you would/I could (fill in the blank)", the youngest crying, "Nooooooo...." when told to take a shower after football or turn off the television.  I have not been feeling much Grace toward them at all.  And I really feel sad about it.  I know I do so much myself that I don't deserve HIS Grace at all - ever.  Yet HE gives it to me freely, openly, and lovingly.  Why hadn't I been able to get with HIS program this week?

I have been reading so many blogs and Facebook posts on "thankfulness" this week.  I am thankful for so many things in my life - my children included!  (I promise!!!)   One thing that stands out right now in my mind is part of the the lesson (and I'm changing the words around a little) I learned yesterday:  Nothing shapes the mother's heart like grace.

I prayed and thought about that message all day yesterday, and woke up this morning feeling a little more Grace-filled (yea!).  I truly desire that Grace-filled heart.  My children deserve my GRACE-filled heart.  My husband deserves my GRACE-filled heart.  And most of all, my Heavenly Father deserves my GRACE-filled heart.