My heart today

There are times my life feels like a small space that is closing in around me, and it’s suffocating. I want to get out even as my heart aches to stay. It is a dichotomy. A tearing in two.  And I don’t ever know which side I am really on. I want to yell at my husband, even as I feel deeply the stress and discomfort that goes hand in hand with his job. I want to hand my children off because I am so tired of it, even as I stare into their faces and melt at the joy and love and trust and innocent beauty that I see there. I want to feel something other than crushing failure and endless, groping struggle for a small measure of success. I want to feel the deep love and joy that so many people seem to get from this job. But I just feel like I am losing. And I open my Bible and read the words, and write what I see and learn about God, but it doesn’t magically make things better. It makes me more aware of the great gap that stands between God’s goodness and my poverty of sin.  It makes me more aware of the scope and weight of the price that was paid to build and pave the bridge across that yawning gap. And that can feel heavy too. But I read further still and see the God who judges harshly, the jealous God, is a God of great love and compassion and care and mercy. I see the Father, who stretches out his hand over and over to pick me up from the sin puddle I fell into, brushes me off, hands me clean clothes, and points me in the right direction. And I am so happy. Happy to know that I am cared for and that God is meeting my needs, all of them, and standing in the empty spaces, and filling in the holes, and being sufficient. God is. And He wants me to be a great mom and he is the best example of parent, but He knows I can’t do it alone so he helps me in that, too. And He shows me that,when I ask for patience, I really should be asking for grace. Grace for me and grace for my kids. And He is working this amazing construction in my heart, my life, and I am but a willing lump, waiting to see what His masterful hands will create. And all the things that seem so far away are as close as a breath when I let go of my desires and expectations, and grasp the things I should. There will be enough missed opportunities for me to mull over as the girls grow. This is one regret I don’t want to have: that I set aside the chance to be a work of God-art for the impossible expectations that my heart lies to me about. Standards only work if they are set in the boundaries of God’s loving Word.