Accepting Grace

{Due to some technical difficulties, I missed Mindful Mothering Monday this week!  In hopes of making it up to you, below you will find my intended post, plus you can find me over at Pure and Simple, talking about   what handmade living looks like in our lives.  2 posts in one day!  Happy Tuesday!}

Those moments, they stick in my mind like glue.  The ones where I screw up.  I've got my own private mental stash - that time baby Jonah fell down the stairs and his teeth went through his lip, and that scar that will never let me forget.  When Peter got into bathroom chemicals.  A kid with a cavity.  Forgotten ballet slippers and tooth fairy failures.  Harsh words I try to take back but never truly fade from my memory.

I've messed up, big.  That voice that whispers guilt and shame and tries to reduce me to nothing more than this can get a hold on me.  That snakelike deception that drags me right down and convinces me that I do nothing right, that I've bit off more than I can chew.  The thoughts that maybe they'd be better off with someone else guiding their way.  Maybe you feel this way sometimes, too?

Perhaps it's time to give yourself a little grace.  I'll take some too, if you don't mind.  We're none of us perfect, and parenting is the final exam with no prep.  When we let those few bad moments dominate our opinions of ourselves as mothers, we are missing the bigger picture.  We are painting ourselves with a broad brush of failure and failing to see what good we work on a daily basis.  The small moments that make up a lifetime.  How our kids will remember us - not based on the few  injustices and inadequacies  but on the daily way we give and serve and love and try so very hard.  In this world of competition, everyone racing and pushing, jostling for position, we can end up focusing on the wrong things, exhausting ourselves in the process.  Dragging ourselves down with negative self-talk will not make us better Mothers.  It's time to stop.

Yes, I think it is time for some grace.  Time to say to yourself - "You are doing a great job."  You with all those kids, or with that job outside the home, juggling it all at once.  You, with the laundry pile and yes, you who can't afford to give your kid everything you wish you could.  You, raising a child on your own and you, who are struggling to connect with the little one you adopted.  You are doing a great job.  Me, too.  My worth is not determined by my failings and foibles, but on the grace I've been given and need to be humble enough to accept.

Yes, I need grace.  From myself, my kids, my husband, my God.  My friends.  By focusing on what I'm doing right, I've got the energy to keep on trying.  One day after the next, stepping onward.

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