From Awful to Awe-Filled ... a Strange Week

Hi Friends,

Well, here’s to a very strange week.  It started with me having a meltdown on the way to church this Sunday.  Then, of course, the little ones didn’t want to go to Sunday school, so I ended up sitting in the car with Jayden (who threw a fit in Sunday school and refused to stay ... sigh) at which point I realized that since school’s ended it’s been all go-go-go and do-do-do.  Me time?  Quiet time? Contemplation, silence, solitude?  Nope.

And that equals mommy meltdown.  Yikes!

Lesson learned.

But that same night, after a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day, something else happened.

Little Beanie (age 2 1/2) asked Jesus into her heart for the very first time.  She was so pleased to pray and ask Jesus to forgive her sins and come into her “art.”  She held her breath as I told her the story of Jesus on the cross, and how one day passed, two days passed, and very early on the morning of the third day, the ground shook, the stone rolled away ... and Jesus was risen.  And that was the most incredible, wondrous, fantastic, amazing, super-awesome thing that has ever happened from the beginning of time until now.

She thought so too.  So we prayed.  Jesus came.  And now if you ask her where Jesus is, she will point to her chest and say, “In my heart.”

I thought it was an awful day.

I was wrong.  Very, very wrong.

And I learned:

--I have limits, God-given limits, that I must live within.  God made me that way.

--God offers the gift of rest. I need to take it.

--Failure is not the end, but the beginning of wisdom.

--God works, even when I can’t.

--Beauty comes from the hand of God, redemption and wonder from him ... not from me and how much I do.

--And even on my very worst day, God can do something absolutely amazing.  He can change a little girl’s heart.  What could be more wondrous than that?

--Our God is the expert at transforming our “awful” into moments of magnificent wonder.  It’s what He does best.