For Today

I think it is any mom's (or woman's truly) eternal struggle to have joy in the midst of circumstances that don't bear up to what we expect. I know that is true of myself.

I can often look around me and only see the crumbs on the floor, the piles of dirty laundry, feel the weight of unmade decisions, and hear the whiny, demanding children

and my initial desire is to react with anger. I feel deserving of better. I feel entitled to ease and perfection.

But the gospel tells me otherwise. What I deserve, and what I have been given, are two very different things.

I deserve God's wrath for my innumerable sins. I deserve death and rejection and punishment.

Instead I recieve pardon, unhindered access to a Holy God, and all of the joy, peace and love that I could ever need.

In light of that, the crumbs, whinyness, unmade decisions, and laundry piles look less like a burden and more like a pleasure and blessing.  I get to serve my family joyfully. I have a family to serve! I get to prayerfully make decisions instead of have them made for me. I have enough clothes to wear that they create piles, and I have so much food to eat that a great deal of it falls underneath my kitchen table :)

I pray today to remember that the Lord's great sacrifice on my behalf was ENOUGH.

For today, and every day, it is all I need to be thankful, joyful and blessed.

I pray you remember that today, too.