It feels super crazy that I just posted my last week’s thirteen things two days ago, so I am going to skip this week, and post instead.  This is what I wrote last night.  Love you, people!

The house is quiet.  The kids are in bed and my husband is out having a drink with a buddy.  I just left the dishes in the sink, the clothes un-put away (the worst part about laundry), and I decided to plop down on the couch with a cheap glass of decent wine.  While I am tired of the humidity and heat, I am thankful for the sun that shone in through the windows today as we read books, learned about the color yellow, and watched little Esmae roll all over the living room.  Today was a great day—hear me when I say, they’re certainly not all this way—but I really had fun with the kids today, I got a few things done, I had a serious heart-felt conversation with my man, we ate dinner as a family, and I have some time now to myself.  What a breath of fresh air.

These kinds of days and nights feel so few and far between.  It makes me feel ever-so thankful that I live this life.  It may be messy sometimes, and sometimes my heart feels wounded and pained, and sometimes I feel unlucky—i.e. this weekend when I needed an emergency root canal, dropped my phone in a lake, and cleaned up puke from the entire backseat on our seven-hour drive home (which should have been five), but boy, every once in a while I get a moment of perspective and I truly feel deeply undeserving of such a lovely existence here during this breath of life.

The last few days I have been battling with my mind.  I have these ways of thinking that have been programmed in me since I was a young kid that I so wish I could de-program.  Surely you all have some of those tendencies—some ways that you self-protect or some ways that you react instinctually—that end up being painful to yourself as well as the people around you?  They may be hindrances to allowing you to open up in relationship, they may be ways that you think in private about yourself, or they could even be things you do to keep people you deeply love from really knowing the inner-workings of your heart.

Lately, I have been experiencing shame over my unnecessary anger, my ability to hold a grudge, and my quickness to feel hurt or sensitive—all patterns established in childhood.  In moments when I know I should apologize to those in my life who are affected by these behaviors, I have been realizing that I am not hesitant to ask for forgiveness out of pride, but out of shame.  I feel like if I acknowledge my wrongs, it will make me even more guilty; when in reality, failing to acknowledge them, allows this shame to rise up in me holding me captive, powerless to de-program anything at all.

The real de-activation, however, comes in recognizing that shame is not who I answer to.  It comes when I allow the Holy Spirit to move in grace over and into and through my life.  It comes in recognizing that love is patient and very kind.  It comes in remembering the truth—that whenever our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything (1 John 3:20).  It comes when I realize all over again who I am: “deeply loved, completely forgiven, fully pleasing, totally accepted and complete in Christ.”  I am not left alone in my sin, and I am not powerless against it.

May I have the courage to believe the grace that saved me will continue saving me over and over again not because I’m worthy, but because He is altogether good.