The Mommy Calling: Life is full of upside-downs and inside-outs

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Life is full of upside-downs and inside-outs

Baby dedication Sunday. A day when we will present our family to the church, dedicate our children to the Lord, and ask our church family to join us in raising our family up in the way God has called us. It is a day that symbolizes the choice we made from Day 1 to give our children up to the Lord and to follow His will for our family. It has taken three years for us to find a date that works for baby dedication. We either had something scheduled, missed the deadline, or I had just had a baby the few times they have done it. This time we were free from commitments (and fresh babies) and we were able to register by the deadline! I was so excited, let all of our family and friends know, and very painstakingly picked out their life verses so everything would be a perfect representation of our feelings for giving them up to the Lord. But when we showed up for the preparation class who was there, but my ex-boyfriend and his wife...

I could just feel myself being tested, pulled in a thousand different directions, struggling to hold back the tears and the very literal vomit that I felt. In my heart, I pray that he truly is this man of God she described. I pray that the mistakes he made with me do not haunt him today, and I pray that he has a truly amazing relationship with his wife and his baby. But as we are sitting here talking about our children being raised together in our church, holding each other accountable as a church family, and the important role we all play in each other's lives I just wanted to run from the room, run from the church.

I'm not going to pretend that my feelings in this matter are godly. I'm not going to pretend that this is easy or that this makes sense. This is a very painful struggle. One that may very well be a test to see if I have truly forgiven, or one that is a test to see how much I can withstand. I don't know. All I know is that God knows. All I know is that I need to fall on my knees before the Lord for strength to make it through this. That, hopefully, this will be a success story to tell my children one day, and a warning that the things of our past do impact our future. But in that moment I couldn't see beyond the past, I couldn't see beyond the pain.

I can only pray that I will be able to share later an amazing victory that has come out of this. I pray that God will wrap His arms around my fragile heart and carry me through this time. If nothing else, this serves as a great reminder as to why it is God who is the leader of my family, a reminder as to why it is God who holds my children in His hands. Because I in my flesh am so very weak, and without His power I am an utter failure. If nothing else this is a reminder that life does happen, and that our mistakes have very real and very unforeseen consequences. If nothing else, this is a reminder of how to be truly godly, how to love those who have hurt us beyond what we can bear, how to show the love of Christ when we cannot love ourselves. If nothing else it is a reminder that life is never going to be perfect, that sometimes we just have to deal with the upside-downs and the inside-outs.

Aren't these moments of the drudged up past such a great reminder of forgiveness? I sit here struggling to hold his past actions against him, yet I pray that no one would ever hold my past actions against me. I truly have forgiven him, I truly have. I was told that one of the signs of true forgiveness is wishing the person who caused you harm the best. Being able to picture them and not wishing harm upon them. And I do, I do wish him happiness in his family, joy with his children, and I pray that he has grown up into a godly man. I do not want to still see him through my eyes of hurt. I need to see him through the filter of God's grace.

Our past does not determine our use in the future. We are all great reminders of this, and I am surely the greatest. If the actions of my past determined how well I would do in the future, I should give up now, but we do not give up because God does not give up on us. Our lives are a constant process of growing, changing, being molded into who He wants us to be. There are things in my past that would hold me back from even speaking in public if I let them. Why do we lavish grace upon ourselves for our past mistakes, but use these mistakes as shackles in the lives of others. We use them to hold these people back to keep them from growing. God forgive me for ever allowing past mistakes to cloud how I view a person today. God forgive me for praying that others forgive me of my mistakes, but not allowing myself to forgive them.

"I love the LORD, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live." Psalm 116:1-2

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Proverbs 31:10-12, 25-31

Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her; so he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life. Strength and honor are her clothing;she shall rejoice in time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness. She watches over the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is fleeting but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates.

Titus 2:1-8

Speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine. That the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things -- that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands that the word of God may not be blasphemed. Likewise, exort young men to be sober-minded in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you.

What did you do today?

Today I was an explorer. I went on adventures to see the wonderful secrets of God's creation. I watched as the birds flew across the sky, listened as the wind blew through the trees, and felt the warmth of the sun upon my face. Today I was a chef preparing gourmet four-course meals the likes of which the finest restaurants have never seen. Today I was a teacher conducting experiments, revealing hidden truths, and watching the amazement of these lessons being learned for the first time. Today I was a student, a doctor, a friend, a performer. Today I was a MOM. And tomorrow I get to do it all over again!

My Hope For You

My hope for you, my fellow mommies, is that you will go throughout your day encouraged by successes, challenged by failures, and thankful for your experiences. That you will learn to thank God in the bad as well as the good, that you will use the powers of the Holy Spirit to become the best you can be, and that you will live your life according to the purpose you were given when you were created in the image of God Himself. May you find encouragement here so you can face the hardships of being a mom, a wife, and an imperfect person trying to live purposefully in an imperfect world, with grace.