I need to confess a short-coming.  Well, let me go back a bit.

The other night I woke up at 2am and could NOT get back to sleep.  So after a bit I prayed, “Lord, who do I need to pray for?”  Then I waited.  Rather than getting any names, I started to think about my kids and how I’ve been frustrated with them and running in the yellow a bit (really the majority of the time) on my patience meter.  Then I got John 1:17.  Grace and truth came through Jesus.  Grace and truth need to come through me to my children.  Sigh.  I can do the truth part in my sleep.  I am seriously falling short on grace.

I think I know what they’re capable of, so that is what I expect at all times.  Have I taught my kids that mistakes are unacceptable?  Probably.  That’s probably why Grace says sorry five times in a row when she does something wrong, and it drives me nuts.  Even scarier, is this why she has anxiety?

Of course I get frustrated with them – the bar is set too high.  I’m setting them up to fail.  I set them up to fail, then I get annoyed when they fail.  I am lacking in grace.  There is my confession.  Thankfully, I’m a “diagnose it and fix it” kind of girl, so I’m on day two of trying to get back in the green on my meter, lower the bar for my children to where they can actually reach it (with some effort), and just be calmer.  I’m not the kind of mom I want to be right now, and I’m not the kind of parent I want them to be when they grow up.

I wrote about finding the balance between being future-minded and seeing them now.  I think this might be the answer, at least for me, for now.  For me, being future-minded meant seeing them as short adults.  Clearly, I was doing the “future-minded thing” wrong.  I’m not abandoning it all together, it’s important, but I CAN’T lost sight of the fact that they’re still elementary-age children.  They don’t brush their teeth independently.  They don’t flush.  They don’t put their clothes away.  They don’t throw away their napkins.  They don’t pick up dropped food from the floor.  My van will be a mess for years to come.  They leave their toys in the yard.  I won’t let these things slide, but I can’t completely lose it when they happen.  They’re children.  They NEED grace from me, so they understand that they get it from Jesus in abundance.

This is my confession, you are all now welcome to keep me accountable and ask me how it’s going.  Accept no excuses.

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