Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Restoration

The last three days have turned my home into a complete disaster zone!  Ciaos is the best way to describe our current home conditions,  every towel we own needs to be washed, dried or folded, toys piled in our formal living room, the dishes lingering on every inch of available counter top and industrial fans drying the once wood covered floor of my basement.  The children have enjoyed cereal and apple sauce for most of their meals and neither my husband nor I have slept this little since our children were newborns.  Still looking at all the disarray, through the disappointment of the  damages of our beautifully finished basement, and  the emotional and physical demands that we have juggled these last few days, I am reminded of so much of God’s hand in our lives.  He created something so perfect and beautiful and man sinned and introduced imperfection and damaged goods.  I understand that God wasn’t surprised by this as I was with my flooded basement, but I know that there was a feeling of loss and a need for restoration in both circumstances.  My husband and I have been one our knees hammering, prying, and pulling up wood flooring to uncover the mess that was hidden beneath.  So that it could be cleaned, dried, and prepped for restoration.  It is a slow, expensive, and physically demanding process but needs to be done, because if left unattended, the water would lay stagnant and a much larger problem would develop: MOLD.  When sin was introduced into our once perfect world, God was prepared and had set a plan into motion to peel away the damage goods, clean our hearts, and fully restore our relationship with Him.
Standing in our basement I looked at my husband in a moment of anxiety, as the total costs of our repairs continue to climb.  I was weighing the costs of the repairs compared to what was available in our bank account and it was disheartening.  Remembering a quote from a guest speaker at our church weeks back, he looked at me and said “It is what, it is.”   Examining my heart and reflecting on my walk with God, I so thankful that when I weighed  my sin debt compared with what I had available to pay, that Jesus stepped in and canceled out that debt.  There was no way that I would have ever been able to pay for the restoration of my heart.  I was beyond bankrupt, and there was nothing I could do to earn my way out of debt.  The wages of sin is death, how could I overcome that?  God looks at each one of our sin debts and says, “It is what, it is,”  and He is there ready to cancel your debt, if we ask Him to.  God’s  redeeming mercy was emotionally and physically demanding and unthinkably expensive.  Jesus Christ walked this broken earth, endured humanity, and paid our sin debt through his death and resurrection.  I couldn’t overcome my sin debt, so he did for me.  I am fully restored.  When I look at the ciaos around me I can be encouraged in knowing that  I have a peace that brightens the shadows of my circumstances.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Dressed for Success

Would you ever leave the house without getting dressed after your shower?  I hope not!  But many of us leave the house everyday without putting on the fine garments that God has provided for us.  Colossians 3:12 says, Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility,gentleness and patience.  It is usually when I trying to get my children dressed in their earthly garments that I forget to model the heavenly ones.   I recall one morning while braiding my daughter’s hair, I had asked her several times to stop wiggling.  Her fine hair would slip from my fingers every time she would turn her head or twirl her toy.  After several attempts to braid her hair  my frustration had propelled me into what I call an Ugly Mommy Moment; I grabbed the toy from her hand and threw it in the bathroom trash can.  My words were filled with contempt and anger.  As I returned to finish her hair, I looked in the mirror and read Colossians 3:12 on a painting I had done the night before, and then into tear filled eyes.  Wow had already forgotten what God’s word tells me to do.  And more importantly what was I sewing into my daughter’s life?  In the right perspective, being late over an extended grooming session didn't have an eternal consequence, but my unrighteous anger did.  I at that moment I embraced my daughter and sought her forgiveness.  Together we read, Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility,gentleness and patience.  I sat with her and explained that holy didn't mean perfect, that it meant we were set apart and that we should try to honor God with our words and actions.  I’m not perfect and neither my words nor my actions during that ugly mommy moment honored God, and I was sorry.  Tears rolled down both our cheeks and with a hug she forgave me.  When I chose to put on humility, God open a door to redeem my parenting failure.  Instead of a moment marked by anger and resentment, it was a learning experience overflowing with forgiveness and grace.