I’m sitting at the pool feeling guilty because I’m not in the pool playing with my daughters, but we can only stay a few minutes before I have to leave to take my son to a school function.  I have spent the majority of my summer in the car and I’m sooooo tired of driving.  I went to bed late and woke up early and I’m tired tired tired.  And I want to rest so very badly but for the life of me (which it actually feels like…I need to sleep to save the life of me) I can’t figure out how to get more than a few hours.

But as I grumpily drove my sweet girls (well kinda sweet girls) to the pool, I realized that I’m forcing my family to live in a state of constant guilt simply because I feel such huge guilt.

I’m tired and overwhelmed (hate that word) and ready to throw my hands up in the air in defeat.  I can’t do it all.  In fact, at the moment, I don’t want to do it all.  I don’t even want to do half of it.

But I want to do whatever I need to do to bless and love and encourage and raise my children well.

I think I have equated that too much with what I do with and for them.  Having 5 kids is a little bit much when it comes to doing things with each of them every day.  The other night my oldest daughter came in to talk at 11:45pm and my middle daughter woke me up at 5am with a tummy ache and my youngest son checked on me at 7am because we needed to leave for soccer at 7:30am.  That’s just the time supposed to be spent sleeping!  The day is full to overflowing with things and people and errands and such…too much stuff.

Enough complaining!

(YOU:  OK Sue, you’re tired, overwhelmed, and too busy.  We got it.)

Driving here I thought about how I’ve done nothing but moan, grown and guilt trip myself and my kids about the circumstances of each day.

My little girls LOVE the pool and I love to take them.  Today though, I just wanted to sit down for a minute with my eyes closed before I made another drive to school.  But I told them I’d take them and I should have happily.  If not happily, at least without making them feel badly about it.

I was already feeling horrible about acting grumpy and fussy (spilling my guilt) when my daughter said, “Momma, I’m sorry for whatever I did that’s making you so unhappy.”

Seriously?

I want to spend time with my children so they feel loved and instead I’m spending time with them and making them feel guilty.

That does not make any sense at all.

I hear people say that we have to take care of ourselves so we can take care of our children…I get it but what does that look like when you live in triage mode ALL. THE. TIME.

I want so badly to do this parenting thing well, but after 6 years of single parenting I’m still baffled by some of the struggles.

I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders lately.  I feel like I can’t possibly do it all and yet God has placed me here so it must be possible.

With man it is impossible, but not with God.  For all things are possible with God. Mark 10:27

With God.

I used to have a magnet that said, “God’s plan will not take you where His grace will not sustain you.”

Maybe it is that I have stepped a bit out of the plan?  Or maybe I’m not believing enough about the grace, or maybe I’m just so tired I can’t see the forest of His grace through the trees of my guilt and exhaustion.

Yeah, it’s probably the forest and trees one.

He’s there.  And I’m kinda way over here…here in my pity party pool.  Drowning.

Lord, help!

Help me find rest.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.   Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.  Matthew 11:28-30

Help me follow you.

Thus says the LORD:  “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths,

where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.  Jeremiah 6:16

Help me – please quiet my soul.

Fear not, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak.  The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love, he will exult over you with loud singing.  Zephaniah 3:17

Help me focus on you.

But my eyes are toward you, O God, my Lord; in you I seek refuge; leave me not defenseless! Psalm 141:8

Help me not worry.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:6-7

Help me trust you with my children.  Help me trust you with myself

Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.  Psalm 62: 8

This guilt thing is for the birds. I have tried hard not to be a guilt giver but in my own guilt I’ve made myself a guilt spiller.  Ugh.

I don’t want to be a guilt spiller.  Guilt is NOT something I want to share or give or spill.

How much more do I want to share, give and spill grace?

I feel like I throw that word around a lot.  Grace.  I know it well.  Why in the world can’t I live it?

I started looking up verses on grace and was struck with something I probably have known but never really thought about – grace is so much more than just something we receive from God.  It’s the place we stand, the place we are under, the means of our justification and our salvation, and the way we act, speak, and think.

Grace – The gift received

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not for yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.  Ephesians 2:8-9

Grace – The place we stand

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.  Romans 5:1-2

Grace – The place we are under

For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.  Romans 6:14

Grace – The means of our justification

…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  Romans 3:23-24

Grace – The means of our salvation

It is by grace you have been saved…For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -and this not for yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.    Ephesians 2:5, 8-9

(I think God wants me to read Ephesians 2:8-9 a bunch…)

Grace – The way we speak

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.  Colossians 4:6

One who loves a pure heart and who speaks with grace will have the king for a friend.  Proverbs 22:11

That last one is getting to me today.  It is just what I need to hear…what I want to apply to my parenting.  I want to speak with grace…have all my conversations with my children always full of grace.

I really like the part about seasoned with salt.

Matthew Henry says this about seasoned with salt:

“Grace is the salt which seasons our discourse, makes it savory, and keeps it from corrupting.”

It goes with those verses about our words always building up and encouraging others.  Our words, even the ones that are meant to hold someone accountable or call someone out (something we often have to do as parents), being gentle.  (Galatians 6:1)

Our words – our grace-filled words – should encourage, edify, enlighten, and embolden our children’s faith…even when they are words of admonition and accountability.

Our words – every word – should not be ones that tear down, but rather build our children up.

Our words should not spill guilt, but should overflow with grace!

I’m praying God will help me be a grace spiller!