Call It Grace (or why I get up at an ungodly hour)

My house is in the gray, smudgy, morning hours right now. A cup of coffee steams. The birds aren't yet drowned out by traffic and rap music (not mine, the neighbor's). My ceiling fans whir, and my mind has time to process.

These hours, these morning times, have become so precious.

In an hour, probably less, the noise will start, the crumbs will fall, and someone will find a way to pry the lid off of a spill-proof sippy cup.

But for now... silence.

In my house, silence isn't golden. It's gray and cool and smooth. And I can breath.

This calm has become increasingly important over these past several months. I've always been busy. Each phase of life has its busyness. There's a form of busyness from the time you could tell what a clock was saying. Junior high, high school, college, professional life... It shifts, it morphs, it looks different. But it's all busy.

Lately my busy has looked a little frantic. And full of stinky diapers. And I've learned that without this still calm, the quiet, my Bible cracked open and my coffee fresh and hot, I'm not a very good mom.

Call it grace.

How often do I remember the exact truth I found and clung to this morning? Not often. Sometimes it's hard to remember the rhythmic beauty of the psalms when both children are convinced that they are dying from the lack of a snack (or toys, or shoes, or car keys, or insert random objects that my children become immediately, violently attached to).

Call it grace.

The days when I pause, when I look up before I look around, those days are better. My speech is sweeter, my temper more even, my to-do list less of a dictator, my children more of a joy.

Call it grace.

God doesn't require that I remember a deep theological truth. He doesn't demand perfect memory of this morning's text. I'm not required to grasp the subtle nuances of Hebrew and Greek while my arms are covered in dish water and a toddler is attached to my leg.

It's grace.

I'm not a morning person. Anytime before 8 a.m. is an "ungodly hour" (and nowadays, my mornings start at 5:30!) But when I turn to God, when I make that "ungodly hour" all about finding my Savior, breaking my heart, waiting for the day with brokenness and deep neediness... He fills me up. And I've found the glory in early mornings.

Such grace.

So, set your alarms, buy a coffee pot with a timed brew, invest in a new journal... and come spend some time at the foot of a God who has new mercies every morning. And He extends them even to those of us who aren't morning people. Trust me. I should know.

What The Bee In Your Bonnet Says About You...

As a self-proclaimed "box-maker," I like to take everything and everyone, package them up, and neatly compartmentalize them. (Just ask my husband. I try to solve even my household dilemmas by arguing, "If we just had a cute box, or a little basket to organize that...")

Motherhood just made this tendency more rampant.

I learned that all moms have a box that they belong in. 

"She's the crunchy mama."

"Well, you know... the 'high-maintenance' moms..."

"I just can't wait to be a soccer-mom!"

"It's slightly intimidating. She's such a Pinterest-mom."

And with each of these labels, there come a slew of rules and suppositions. Don't feed the crunchy-mama's children anything but organic fruit. Make sure your house is clean and you have a versatile craft planned for when the Pinterest-mom comes over. Check with the high-maintenance mom to see what preservative/activity/toy/gluten-laden-goody she's avoiding this week because of some article she read on-line.

Because the fact of the matter is, mamas suffer from multiple "bees in their bonnets." What children should eat, what children should do, what places to go, clothes to buy, extracurriculars to enroll in, what the family rules are, what discipline looks like, what fun looks like, what a well-behaved/happy child should do... And some of that is good.

Moms are supposed to be selective. We are supposed to carefully sift through influences and external dangers. We are here to protect, nurture, and raise our children... to be like Christ.

Ah. There's the kicker.

When we moms get upset about car seats, food, and activities, we are telling the world what is most important to us. Hear me carefully... I'm not saying that standard car seats and all-natural fruit snacks are bad.

I'm saying it shouldn't be what gets you all cranked up.

Maybe you went ballistic over the cost of organic apples, or expended hours planning the perfect play-date, but did you notice the disrespectful tone of the TV show your child was watching? Did you grieve over the sprouts of sin in your toddler's life as much as you wailed over another mom's lack of interest in kiddie-pool safety?

(Yes, yes, yes, watch your children while their in the pool.)

That's not what I'm arguing against.

I'm saying that we, as finite, tired, over-whelmed, busy mamas, we have a limited amount of energy to care. We are not God. Our reservoir of caring and passion is not limitless. So are you guarding yours with care? Are you making sure that the bees in your bonnet are the ones that your really should be upset about? When was the last time you had a little temper tantrum about the importance of teaching your child the Bible? About consistent discipline? About manifesting Christ's love and joy consistently?

Even Jesus got mad about the right things. 

But we don't do that, do we?

We label. We post articles to Facebook. We look down our noses at what other moms are choosing to do, or else we crawl into a closet of inadequacy and wail because we're not Super Mom.

Maybe instead of labeling, ranting, and making molehills into mountains, maybe we should get down on our knees and ask for perspective. Maybe we should come alongside our fellow moms and encourage them in the BIG things. Maybe we should take a moment to realize that the crafts, snacks, and activities are not the most important things. 

In the end, it's the things that make you crazy, the things you rant about, the things you cling to passionately, those are the things that really matter to you.

So... what do the bees in your bonnet say about you?