Digging out

A dear friend recently reminded me that I do not need to preface my conversations about my children  by assuring her that I really do love them. Maybe you, too, know these kind of confessions. They usually begin,"I really love my kids, but..."

And off I slide into that well-worn hole of guilt that I know so well.

Today, guilt buried me on my snow day from school as I kept finding myself imagining what a free day like this will be like when my kids are older – or if I had brought them to daycare. I daydreamed about sleeping in long enough to see a number past seven, taking a shower that wouldn't need to coincide with the baby's nap time, reading quietly in a chair. Even unloading the dishwasher in peace.

I find guilt for not being the parent I should when I'm with my children, or guilt when I'm not there at all. Guilt for trying to do it all, or guilt for not getting enough done. Guilt because there is such a gap between who I am and who I am sure I'm called to be.

When I was a kid I had a reoccurring dream that my parents were gone, and due to some emergency, I had to drive my siblings in a car with pedals I couldn't reach.

"You are not enough." I hear the whispers. "We need more from you."

Yesterday I heard a sermon that is still sitting in my gut. I heard Truth that would tell those whispers to shut up. (Probably not that nicely either.)

My pastor spoke about the Beatitudes – and how most of think of these words as commands, as hoops that need to be jumped through. If you are meek, you'll be blessed; if you are peaceful, you'll be blessed; if you mourn, you'll be blessed – if you do everything right, then God will love you.

But that kind of thinking just helps me to slide deeper into my hole. Because the blessing comes first. The Beatitudes are the  beginning of the Sermon on the Mount – it's blessing before commands, blessing without reason. Blessing where it is least expected.

Pastor Tom also shared these beautiful words from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. As a dying father writes to son, we see a glimmer of God's love for us, "... it's your existence I love you for, mainly. Existence seems to me now the most remarkable thing that could ever be imagined."

I was reminded yesterday that we are far less eager to receive God's blessing than he is to bless us – we have a hard time believing that God really wants to bless us. Just as we are. Just because we exist.

The way out of my hole – only GRACE.