She Has Shown Great Love

Many of you know the story: Jesus is dining at one of the Pharisees house. And a woman in the city, "who was a sinner", stood behind Jesus at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet in ointment. As those in the room begin to judge this woman and Jesus in the process, Jesus says, "She has shown great love."

I am struck by those words. I desire to live my life with that one statement in mind, "She has shown great love." I suppose that is why I have always been struck by these words by Mother Teresa:

I have been trying the prayer practice of the Examen. This gives me an opportunity to look for God's presence in my day. I can show gratitude for all the blessings and moments where God was present. (For information on how to pray the Examen, you can click here.) It also gives me an opportunity to look for times in my day when I needed grace, when I did not show great love. And there are so many...I judged this person by looks alone, I was gossiping with my co-workers, I barked at my children because they interrupted me scrolling through my facebook news feed...

But then there are the glimpses of love...I washed the dishes left in the sink at work, a friend wrote me a sweet note, I witnessed a mother see her baby hear for the first time. Great love- it comes sometimes in the big things, but more often in the small.

So today I begin a new practice. In my morning quiet time, I will picture those I most likely will come in contact with during the day. I will begin to put energy toward showing them love even before I see them for the first time. I know I will still need much grace. But I also hope that at the end of the day, I can smile remembering the times that I have shown great love.

 





Let Me Tell You Why I Suck as a Parent

I don't know why my brain is thinking in movie quotes these days. But yesterday was a rough day for me as a parent and I just couldn't stop hearing this line and this scene from Tommy Boy.

You may think this post will be to share some story about my bad parenting- like Gabre getting an airplane bottle out of the freezer, drinking it, leading to an ER trip last Saturday. I have plenty of those. But this story is about grace. And how we forget sometimes when we talk about forgiveness that often the person we need to forgive is ourselves. It's about the need for all of us parents to give ourselves grace.

Parenting is so damn hard. Some days it is harder than others. Yesterday was one of those days. What I realize is I am an OK parent when I do it with Jimmy. He recognizes when I am about to lose it, and rescues me (rescues the kids?) by giving me some time alone. All you single parents out there, my hat is off to you. You are impressive.

Jimmy taking the kids to see the boats at the beach...one of those rescue times.

Yesterday Jimmy was sick and so I was on my own. I said some bad things. I gave some mean looks. You could say, I was not at the top of my parenting game.

I think one of the hardest things for me as a parent is all the noise. Noise from my kids comes in different ways:The constant talking; the constant need for something- water, to be held, to play; the arguing; the toys...

Then there is the 'noise' I create. This comes in form of my 'to do' list. I will play with you when I finish___. I can help you with that after I am done____. I was going to read with you, but you kept interrupting my ____ with your arguing so now there is no time.

In addition to the noise, there is the comparing. Why must I compare myself to other mom's? To the mom whose daughter always looks so cute from her hair to her outfit. To the mom on facebook who got the best picture of her kids playing together outside in the sun yesterday. To the mom with the 'it won't be like this for long, so I'm just enjoying every moment' attitude. 

And to think I would go as far as to write about this. There are BIGGER problems out there.  But I can't help but think I'm not the only one. And that maybe there is another mom (or dad) out there today that needs to hear these words I read last night from the book, "More or Less" by Jeff Shinabarger:

"I am me. And because no other person can be me, I am good enough. You be you. And because no other person can be you, you are good enough. We are better than enough".

Today I am thankful for the beauty of a new day. Thankful to recognize that I need grace. That I do need help in parenting. I will make mistakes. I will have other days like yesterday. But, I am good enough...and so are you.