“And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth… For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” 
John 1:14, 16

“What’s wrong, babe?” my husband gently asked me.

“Nothing.” (Lie. Nothing is almost always a lie.)

“Katie, I can see it all over you. Is something going on?”

“I don’t know. I’m just anxious,” I tell him, as I refuse to stop switching out the washer and dryer and make eye contact with him, like a passive-aggressive reminder that I work hard around here and I want him to notice that.

But he notices my heart. “Ok, what are you anxious about?”

And I know, I absolutely know what I am anxious about. I am anxious about being a mom. I am anxious about my son’s new hitting habit. I am anxious about the minefield of social media. I am anxious about the future. I am anxious about my writing, which I should probably quit. I am anxious that everyone hates me. I am anxious because there is so much to do, and never enough time. I am mad and anxious and my kids are hard and my work is crap and I feel politically and culturally homeless and everyone is yelling at each other and I hate conflict and I just feel so anxious! But that is not what I tell him. “I don’t know why I’m anxious.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” Yes, I do. But I want him to work a little harder.

“Ok, babe. Well I love you, and I’m listening when you are ready.” And then he leaves the laundry room and I stand there with all of my self-justified reasons to be mad, and as I throw the last wet towel into the dryer and slam the door I feel it, the pang of conviction that always comes when I forget all of the most important things.

*****

Grace. It is one of those words heavy with meaning yet thrown around lightly like confetti and unfortunately, it’s impact rarely seems to last much longer. We take it so lightly, this grace thing. We say grace. We ask God for grace. We like grace. But we are also very selfish about grace. We demand it from others when we feel judged and we tend to withhold if from others when we feel wronged. If I am honest, sometimes it feels like I can tend to carry grace around more like a gun ready to defend myself than like a white flag ready to fall to my knees at the reality of how desperate I am without it.

And y’all, I am so very desperate for grace.

This day, this hour, this minute.

The greek work for grace is charis. Isn’t that beautiful? It means “that which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness: grace of speech,” and my favorite, “the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in life, including gratitude.”

…its reflection in life, including gratitude.

I have had a hard time feeling gratitude lately, and much less of a hard time throwing out all of the reasons why I don’t feel it. One needs thirty seconds or less on social media these days to see one or two or three thousand reasons our world does not feel grateful either.

But I realized something about myself a long time ago: when my heart is feeling this anxious, this scared, and this self-centered, it’s actually a sign that I have not been paying attention to Jesus, and a clear indication that I have mistaken myself for the rescuer when I am merely, humbly, and of no merit of my own, the rescued.

And things get real ugly when I get those two things confused.

If I am the rescuer than this all depends on me: my children have to make me look good in pictures and in person or I am failing. My writing has to be good and high on approval every time or it is not worth doing. My precious little boy who understands the world so differently than the rest of us has to learn how to function well and, God-willing, on his own someday, or I have dropped this beautiful special needs assignment God gave me. And must I even mention the social issues I care so deeply about, the women dancing in clubs and selling their bodies, the unborn children who don’t get to live and the children born who are not adequately cared for; the oil pipeline that is unjust and the leadership that makes me crazy and did I mention it all makes me feel homeless?

And really quickly I see nothing to be grateful for, and a big to-do list to be mourning over. Grace has no reflection in my life, and I have no gratitude. Because being a rescuer is hard and don’t people see how hard I am working?!

Don’t people see?

Oh, if you only knew how many of my issues start there.

And yet I know the heartbeat of my anxiety: I forgot that I was rescued, and in that rescue, given grace. And as so beautifully put in the gospel of John and then explained by Matthew Henry: “it is ‘even grace,’ so great a gift, so rich, so invaluable. We have received no less than grace; the goodwill of God toward us and the good work of God in us… All believers receive from Christ’s fullness; the best and greatest saints cannot live without him, and the weakest and most insignificant can live through him. Because we have nothing except what we have received, proud boasting is excluded; and because there is nothing we lack that we cannot receive, our perplexing fears are silenced.”

Nothing we have except what we have received. Nothing we lack that we cannot receive.

I am not a rescuer. I am rescued.

All of us, we are rescued. And that’s grace, even grace!

There is much good work to be done, but we do not do it as rescuers. We ought not to think that highly of ourselves. The good in us is not actually us, but Jesus, but grace. And all I can think to do in response to that is beg him for more of it.

Maybe I feel homeless because this world isn’t home. And I know I feel anxious because I tend to add myself to an equation that needs no addition. But today, may what I say, how I speak, and what I do start here: grace upon grace.

*****

“Hey babe, I’m sorry I used my heart as a reason to be frustrated at you. I just, I just feel anxious and I really do know why, but I don’t know what to do about it.”

And he responds so well. “Can I pray for you?”

I did not always receive that request well, not from my husband. I have spent a long time wanting to be heard and not prayed for, and far too often still default to that, we both do. But not when I know I am rescued, not when I see so clearly my need for grace.

“Yes, I would love that. I need it. Would you pray that every single minute of every single day, God would help me to remember that I’m rescued.” 

the official mug shot.

The whirlwind of the morning was starting to wear me down. In a mere thirty minutes my un-showered self and my tribe of three were supposed to be out the door, in the car, and on our way to church. Dad was volunteering at church that morning, so he was already gone, but we were going to show up kind and well-behaved and on time, ready with our “so good to see you!” smiles because, for the love, it was church! And church is for Jesus, so our good behavior counts extra there.

(No, it doesn’t.)

(But if I’m real honest I tend to act like it does, like if I can appear really “together” in God’s house then I don’t have to be quite as “together” outside of it.)

(But that’s another story. Let’s get back to this one.)

And then I saw it. The pink. Permanent pink, I should add. It was on the couch. It was on the table. It was on the walls tracking from the playroom up the stairs. Y’all, it was on my daughter’s English muffin, which traced it right back to the source.

“Harper, what’s on your hands?”

“Oh, mommy, I was just making cards for you!”

“Ok, well can I see your hands?”

Shyly, slowly, with the trepidation of a dozen excuses that she couldn’t quite find at the tip of her tongue, she turned her hands over.

Busted.

Ten fingers, perfectly dipped in a pink embossing stamp pad that mommy thought she had put high enough on the shelf. But is anything ever too high for a three-year-old? No. They have ninja like qualities we don’t even know about, and they are stealth enough to open the once out of reach goods as far out of eyesight as they can get from mommy, too.

But church, CHURCH! We are supposed to go to church now! And church is for Jesus, three-year-old! And that means we should act like him, dang it!

(You know where this is going, yes?)

I have to parent no more than one hour every morning before hypocrisy slaps me in the face.

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time lately with John Piper’s words. And as always, they are compelling—as beautifully crafted as they are powerfully convicting. One of the lessons that I’ve been working out in my heart is what Piper calls “a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion: to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his excellence.” Enjoy God. Show Him to others. Piper says it is our aim to “joyfully magnify Christ—to make Him look great in all that we do.”

Here’s the thing, I read those words just two hours before the great ink-down in our house. And when I looked around at the pink that may or may not come off of the various surfaces ten little fingers had left it, I wanted to be mad. I wanted to yell. I wanted to shame my little three-year-old into a behavior that would make my morning easier, especially because we were going to church. I mean, didn’t she know that?!

But those words… enjoy God, show Him to others. The mirror of my own reproof spun right around, and all I could think of was my own heart. The correction from the Lord felt something like this:

Katie, don’t you dare enjoy Me just in the church lobby.

Or to earn favor among friends.

Or to scratch and claw for influence.

Or to be seen or heard or applauded.

Enjoy Me because I am God. Show Me to others because I am good.

And really, before you worry one bit about how your Christianity is displayed on the outside, know that I care so much more how it is displayed in your home. Show Me to your babies. Tell them how gracious I am, and live out what loving-kindness actually looks like. Discipline because you love them, but love them as you discipline.

This is your work today. These three faces, one with pink ink staining her fingers, are my sweet gift to you. Be glad in me so you can help them to be glad in Me, too. The hope of both of your lives is faith in Me. 

There are a lot of days that I feel like I am drowning in little people. And responsibilities. And dreams. And so many- mostly good- things. But I know that it is in those moments when it’s most important to ask Jesus to help me make Him look great in all I do. All I do. A deep breath, a prayer, and a gentle correction, then the whole trajectory of our morning is different. The role of mama was not given to me because I am good enough for it; it was given to me because God knew he was going to show me more of Himself in this way. And he is, every single day. My inadequacies- and they are many- remind me each hour that I need his grace, and that it will be enough.

“God made me a mother because he jealously and rightly desires praise for his own name, and this is how he saw fit to do it. God aims to glorify himself through our family, and we get to be carried along by his grace.” –Gloria Furman

This girl.  The one who made me a mama, who looks exactly like me as a child, who makes me laugh, who has made me cry, who I love more than the world.  Harper Kristin, the stories I will tell about you someday…

Permission to speak freely?  This week was rough.  Three out of five days Harper has put her little size seven foot down on naptime, and by 5:00pm we have both been a hot mess.  The last two hours of the day became a bit of a battleground: mama versus two-and-a-half year old, wisdom versus will, maturity versus independence.  Well, the battle should have been those things but I submit that it is all too easy to act like a two-and-a-half year old myself and throw maturity out the door for the sake of winning, and winning quickly.

On Wednesday night I put Harper to bed early.  Still in her Elsa gown, teeth unbrushed.  She did not get a book that night, as I explained to her she did not have a kind heart and she was speaking with disrespect to her mama.  Those things do not get privileges in this house, they have consequences. That, and I simply could not parent any longer that day.  Straight to bed it was.  I put the blanket over her, said I love you, and shut the door behind me.  And then I came upstairs and cried a little.  Because gosh, being a mama just takes every bit you, physical and emotional, doesn’t it?  I texted my husband, who responded perfectly with encouragement, reminded me that the worst behavior of a two-and-half year old does not indicate at all what their best behavior as and adult will be, and told me I’m the best mom for her.

And then, I prayed.  I prayed for forgiveness for myself.  I prayed for Harper, and for Cannon, not that they would be perfect children but that they would see the way God loves us and love him in return.  I asked God for wisdom as I raise my little Harper girl, that her heart would be brave and tender at the same time, that her will would be strong—just like God made her—and submissive to godly authority as well.  I actually prayed myself to sleep, because evenings like those remind me how very incapable I am of raising children without Jesus.

What happened in the morning… I could not make this up if I tried.  After a great night of sleep, I hear Harper calling for me from her room.  I went in with my usual, happily high-pitched “good morning, sweetheart!” and looked at her in bed.  Her big blue eyes met mine and she said, “Mama, I won’t disobey you anymore.”

Um.  I’m sorry.  What?

“What did you say, Harper?”  “Mama, I won’t disobey you anymore.”  Then she grabbed my two cheeks with her hands and kissed me on the lips.  Exactly what I do to her a hundred times a day. 

And there, friends, went my heart.

I squeezed that girl tighter than I ever have.  Not just because she was sorry, but because I was sorry, too.  We both forgave each other.  She will disobey me again, and she did.  I will lose my patience with her, and I have.  I fail daily at this job.  But there’s grace.  Amazing, amazing grace.  And grace, even between a mama and her fiercely independent toddler, is beautiful. 

I offer so little when it comes to parenting wisdom, but this much I know.  Our greatest tool is prayer, and our biggest resource is God’s word.  Harper may not be able to read 1 Corinthians 13 yet, but she will see whether or not I am.  Because just like love, motherhood is patient and kind; it does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.  Motherhood does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; motherhood does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Motherhood bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Motherhood never ends.

Sweet Jesus, I am so glad I am her mom.  You gave me the gift that I needed the most, the one I am so privileged to have, in her.

Read more being her mom essays here. 

The beautiful expanse of the Pacific, it never gets old to me.  The way that the waves swish and crash, or how the bubbles of the water’s edge crawl up and back down the sand all day long, as if they are playing a game they never grow tired of.  I could dig my feet in and roll sand around between my toes, just sitting, watching, listening to the ocean for hours.  I love that I can stare at the horizon, or scan as far north and south up the coastline as my eyes will let me, but still never find the end.  I love that it is quiet but never silent, peaceful but never still...

Read the rest of this essay over at Coffee + Crumbs...