some cold hard facts

Dear friends, if you are here looking for answers, you're in the wrong place.  This is a place of questions, of missteps, of having to seek forgiveness.  I don't claim to be the expert on anything. 

I don't know about you, but too often I really don't get other blogs - especially ones written by stay-at-home Christian moms.  I wonder if they are entirely too happy, if they are really honest about their days, if they are really in touch with reality.  Me, I'm not often as happy, or with it, or able to fake it as well as those people.  Personally, I have many days that down-right suck - days when abundant life seems like a pipe dream......and I suspect that you have them, too. 

This life that I have been given is fraught with danger, full of potholes and overflowing with blessing.  I strive to see the hand of God in the every day of my life - and if I don't, am wise enough to know that it's because of my faulty vision and not His lack of presence.  I strive to be the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control) and not just force myself to act like them.  I purpose everyday to steward and enjoy my children and not just fervently pray for bedtime.  And some days I glimpse, out of the corner of my eye, a shadow of the greatness of God....I grasp for a fleeting moment what 'freedom in Christ' really means.....I sense the incredible release of finally trading my armor in for a heart that is unafraid.  I long to dwell in those places, to have confidence in a life of full surrender.  But then, a word, an accusation from the enemy, a dark reminder of things left undone and the longing fades away. 

This slogging away through muck and mire is not the life that God intends for us.....it is the life we build for ourselves out of our own sin, our own self-reliance, our own foolish notions that we can save ourselves.  The muck and mire will always remain in this world, but what the Lord Jesus offers us is a way to navigate it, to rise above it, to overcome it....and then to turn and bring those around us out of it, too. 

Come along as I navigate my way out....