See this little setup?
I’m pretty proud of it. Very pinterest-y. As someone who struggles to cast a vision and then pull together all of the details necessary to execute it, I’m proud to say that it only took me approximately 3 years to finally get a “family values” placard on our wall. Originally I wanted to have some sort of custom hand-lettered pallet art made, but alas, that would require looking at shops and actually contacting people and making the decisions about what exactly I would want it to say. I’m still recovering from decision-fatigue from our home add-on and renovation project of 2014, so custom wall decor feels a little like a bit of an overreach for me right now.
Thanks to Marshall’s and Hobby Lobby, my scaled back dreams of a values wall for our family were finally achieved.
Now, about what that sign says.
I’ve been failing at all of it this week.
I’ve not been laughing, I’ve been griping.
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I’ve not been trying my best, I’ve been letting the victim voice in my head conjure up excuses.
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I’ve not been patient. Not even. Like zero percent.
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Have I told the truth? Well, when your life feels like a walking lie because you yelled your kids right out the door to school and then you plaster a smile on your face to carry on with everyone that you need to interact with that day, yeah that feels like a lie. So even if I didn’t lie with my lips, I lied with my face.
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While I want to support all my favorite people who live here, I find myself speaking words of discouragement rather than encouragement all too often. Encouragement takes thoughtfulness and intention, while discouragement can feel like a native language.
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Definitely could have used more hugs this week. I could have given out a lot more. The ones I remember felt really, really good.
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I did make a ton of mistakes, so I’m winning at that one!
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I haven’t given up because I’m clinging to the hope that God can redeem all things and that He is going to somehow work powerfully in all of our lives in a way that makes our failures fade like a vapor.
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Forgiving. That is something that our family seems to excel at, as we have an abundance of opportunities to practice it because we are so JACKED UP. Seriously, if there’s one good thing about so much strife around here, it’s that my kids are getting their Masters degrees at Forgiveness University.
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Promising to “do better and try harder” day after day is a cruel way to live. In theory I always want to keep my promises, but in reality I can’t.
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We definitely don’t always have fun. There is homework. There are dishes. There is bedtime. There is the crucible of getting all the things ready for school and getting bodies fed and ready to leave for the day and then getting to the car with backpacks and lunches and coats and OHMYGOSH. “Fun” is not a word I would use to describe getting ready in the morning. In fact, there may have been some slammed doors and a basket of clean laundry dumped and real, actual tears this morning. I’m not naming names but good gracious, today was a doozy. I cried legit tears in the car over my failure and sadness about our perpetual morning fails after I dropped the boys off at school.
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But above all we LOVE. See, now this is the thing that’s going to rescue us. I just know it will. It has to. All the other stuff is a bonus, a by-product of love being made real in our home. We are so far from nailing it. We are falling short over and over, but we ARE making progress. I know that the speed with which we seek reconciliation and forgiveness is shorter than it used to be. Hearts go from hard and angry to soft and contrite at a much quicker pace. I see us preferring one another over ourselves more than before. Not perfectly, not every time (not even close), but we are moving in the right direction.
The love that has been poured into our hearts (isn’t that an amazing picture!?) from God is the only thing that will sustain us. It’s our only hope. His love into us and right back out of us onto the people around us.
And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Romans 5:5
So on a week like this, when I’ve not been showing as much love as I’d like to, and I’ve been discouraging, and impatient, and full of mistakes and sin, I have to stop looking at my broken self and the mirror screaming “Do better, try harder!!!” and I’ve got to get quiet. I’ve got to get back to that place where I remember and even discover anew, the vast reservoir of love that God has for me and each one of us, let that love pour into my heart, and then pour it out with reckless abandon.
All the other things will fall into place with that one thing.
And until I can get all those things on the sign right every time, I will continue looking at them as a reminder that I’m perpetually inadequate and I need to get back to the source of LOVE.
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