A Work In Progress

Ok.  Take a step back.  Breathe.

Something is terribly wrong in this home, and I'm pretty sure that it's me.

The more I try to let things go, to let go of perfection, to care less about what people think the more it eats at me.

The more that God tries to work on this area of my life, the more it hurts.  The harder it gets.

People will be coming into my home in the next few hours and I'm freaking out over the crayon on the walls, the dog hair on my sofa and the clutter in my home.

So I get up and I start cleaning.  As I start to clean I notice a pair of my husbands shorts next to the bed on the floor.  I pick those up.  After I pick those up I realize laundry needs done.  I start collecting a mess of dirty clothes that was strewn about my house.

I come downstairs to load the laundry and notice about a dozen pair of shoes in my basket by the door.  I throw those on the stairs and start making a "go upstairs pile".  I notice pieces of paper that my daughter has thrown all over the floor.  I pick up all the little pieces of paper and I can feel myself getting more frustrated.

Every room I go into has a mess to clean up.  Once I get a room clean, and move onto the next, by the time I go BACK into the first room, there is a NEW mess, a new blanket fort, something else to pick up.

I'm truly chasing a tornado.  My effort is all in vain.

So what do I do rather than give up on perfection?  I cry.  I yell.  I get angry.  I give into my sin and disgusting behavior rather than pray, work on it and do what I need to do.  I take my frustration out on those closest to me, my kids, my husband, my WONDERFUL family.  Those who it will effect the most.  Those who are watching me and learning what it is to be like Christ. 

Then I hate myself.  So I cry more, I feel shame. My sin disgusts me.  It makes me physically ill.  I feel pain in my body, I feel an ache in the pit of my stomach when I allow it to take control.  It hurts.

Then it hits me.  A song I haven't heard in about 25 years.  A song I sung in Sunday School as a kid.  A sweet little tune.

He's still working on me to make me what I ought to be.
It took Him just a week to make the moon and stars,
The sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars.
How loving and patient He must be, He's still working on me.

There really ought to be a sign upon the heart,
Don't judge her yet, there's an unfinished part.
But I'll be perfect just according to His plan
Fashioned by the Master's loving hands.

In the mirror of His Word reflections that I see
Make me wonder why He never gave up on me.
He loves me as I am and helps me when I pray
Remember He's the Potter, I'm the clay.

I'm currently taking a parenting class at church.  The other night they used an example of a blacksmith forming a horse shoe.  Sometimes the blacksmith has to bang on it gently to get it the shape that it needs.  Other times he has to apply heat, put it in the fire, to really shape it to where it needs to be.

Right now, I think that God is putting me under the fire.  It burns.  It hurts.  But he is shaping me.  He is making me the wife, the mother the woman I am supposed to be.

Rather than worrying about the way my home looks, I need to worry about my homes atmosphere.  I want people to feel the love of Christ as they walk through my door.  I want them to feel joy.  The wonderful joy that comes from my amazing kids.  I want them to roar with laughter like we do at times.  I want them to experience the feeling of family.

I can't do it on my own.  I need Christ every day to give me strength, and patience.   I need him to make me less selfish.  Because on my own I will only fail.

Most of all I need to realize that He's still working on me.

 ¹ There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.^{[a] 2} For the law of the Spirit of life has set you^[b] free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. ³ For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin,^[c] he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. ⁵ For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ⁶ For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. ⁸ Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
 ⁹ You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ¹⁰ But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹ If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. 

 -Romans 8:1-11