His grace finds me

I woke up with the words to Matt Redman's song, Your Grace Finds Me, in my head. Whenever I wake up with a song on mental repeat, I ask myself why God gifted that song to me for that day. After pondering this a bit this morning, and going through my usual morning activities which (unfortunately) included a bit on Facebook, I realized that I was the one needing  grace.

And Facebook was the trigger. A post popped up that I had first seen yesterday. It was a post that made me question my parenting and my choices as a mother. But it wasn't just that post. I'm sure it was the cumulative effect of so many posts and articles and opinions. Having a long history of low self-esteem and lack of grace for myself, it was bound to happen. Look and listen long enough, and someone with my history is quickly going to take it all to heart and think she screwed up her kids. Because according to all of the information thrown at me, I find myself questioning every decision I made for and about my children, from pre-conception to the present time.  It doesn't matter that I look around my table and see eight great, healthy, well-behaved, and intelligent kids. The inevitable result is always guilt and disgrace.

But when I realized that the words of this song were for me today, I also realized that my God is so much bigger than all of this. I may not have done it right and I may still be doing it wrong but my God is able to heal and restore, to look beyond and to speak words of wisdom to me right when I need them.

Moms, if you find that your story is similar to mine, let this be the day that you begin to give yourself grace. Let this be the day you rely more on the Holy Spirit and His guidance than on all the words of wisdom coming from social media and your well-meaning friends. Because at the end of the day, it's not going to matter whether or not I drank the glucose water during my pregnancy or that I sent my children to public school, it's not going to matter if you used disposable diapers and let your children chew on plastic toys. What's going to matter is that you listened to that still, small voice and that you trusted in a God who is bigger than whether or not you used a baby carrier or held your baby on your hip, a God who can use your children for His kingdom whether or not you had a home birth, even if you heat your food in a microwave.

Grace for you. Grace for me. Grace for the day and every day to come.

Your great grace
Oh such grace
Your great grace
Oh such grace

So I’m breathing in Your grace
And breathing out Your praise
I’m breathing in Your grace
Forever I’ll be

Your grace finds me
Yes Your grace finds me