Unfailing love....

You delight in unfailing love.  Micah 7:18

There are days when I just want to run and hide!  You know those days... when you feel so much less than you are, like you are failing at everything.  You are pulled in every direction, from everyone who needs a part of you.  You feel completely under qualified and totally overwhelmed!

But that is where God can reach you the easiest.  And He reminds us that He loves us regardless of our imperfections and failures.  He loves us when we are at the top of our "game" or if we have three strikes! (I know nothing about baseball... but it sounded good.)

As a mom to my clan, I have to do the same - have unfailing love.  I have kids of all ages and in all stages... and they do things that I do not approve of.  But I love them, in spite of their best accomplishments or total messes.

We want so badly for our precious children to be the poster child for "perfection" - and some days they may be.  But I promise, one day you will wake to find that they have not lived up to your ideals for them (or even God's).  Just as God loves us in our messes, we really must love our children in theirs. (And they need to love us when we are a mess too.)

We can't overlook or condone sin.  We do have to offer love and a safe place to land when they realize that they need it.  Sometimes loving them means leaving them where they are, so they learn the hard way. (And that mom is very, very hard.)

I am so thankful for the unfailing love of my Jesus.

It has to die.....

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, 

it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)

I've really never look at this verse very closely, until today.

My daddy always had a garden.  He often would leave the seeds in the house to dry out in the fall.  I loved to play with the seeds and just let them fall through my fingers.  But those seeds would just lie there until he put them away.  When planting season would come around, daddy would till the soil, and we would plant the seeds.  Drop them in the dirt and cover them.  They would grow and grow - we would harvest.  It was after some of these vegetables were cut and had "died" that the seeds would be harvested.

Jesus - had to die, be buried and be raised from the dead - to bear much fruit.  It was after He completed what He was sent to do - bring salvation to the lost.  He bore much fruit.

We are the same - we have to die to self, allow Jesus to change us, till the ground, plant within us, and we grow - to produce good fruits.  

Sometimes death is painful, we have to surrender OUR wants, for His best.  But oh how great the reward in the end.