Well, Hello Monday.

It is Monday. Once again. How fast they seem to sneak upon me! Our guest blogger of the day, Heather, has had a family sick with all kinds of crud, so she gracefully bowed out for the week. We will catch her again though, don't you worry!


Out of the next 12 weekends, I already have something planned for 8 of those. How is that possible?

One of those weekends, we will be taking Eli to the state speech meet. He won the poetry division in his class. Cade won the bible division when he was in first. I don't say that to brag...even though I am obviously proud of them. But, when Eli hopped in the car last week and told me the news, I was just overcome with the grace of God. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

I know I couldn't take a single ounce of credit for how they performed. Or how well they do in school. Or how cute they are. Or how they excel at sports. Or how kind they are to those they come in contact with. Or how well they do at Bible memorization. I can't take a single ounce of credit and I was overcome that day with how it is all about God's grace and favor on their lives and has absolutely nothing to do with me.

When Sam enters 1st grade in a few years, I won't hold any expectations on him to win the speech meet. We will be disciplined to learn and do our best, but I won't expect him to win just because his brothers did. He is his own unique little man, with unique talents and traits. God's grace and favor will be all over his life, but it may express itself in different ways. And I can assure you that when it does, it will not be because of any of my doing.

Sometimes, I feel like such a failure at this Mom thing. (And daughter thing and sister thing and friend thing and last but not least, this wife thing.) Sometimes I feel like at the moment my sister died, I got off my life train. Things that I used to be good at just stayed on the caboose. It is hard for the me to stay organized. Hard for me to plan anything special for those I love. Hard for me to make decisions. I just feel crippled in a lot of areas and I am ready to regain some sense of who I was before the "Evil Day." I am functioning, but not in the same way that I did before that day. I need hope that I won't stay here forever. I need hope that "Becke" will be back around sometime. I miss her.

I feel like Mephibosheth, the cripple who was invited to live at King David's palace not because of what he could offer the King, but because of the grace of the King and who Mephibosheth was to him. (His friend Jonathan's son...see 2nd Samuel.)

So, that day that Eli climbed into the car and announced his big news, I was awash with the fact that it isn't about me having to ensure that my kids are going to excel in life. In my crippled life, God's grace has been just that: favorable and free.