When your best is not good enough...

It really kicks me to the core when I hear that my best is not good enough.  A certain pang goes down my spine and my gut wrenches when I feel like I've given it my all to no avail.  It seems futile and wasteful...all that energy!  I have calculated and examined, stressed and made perfect, all to have someone say, "Well, it's just not good enough".  What do I then?  I am exhausted and sad that my talents have not matched up with my expectations, I feel that I have been let down and let down someone at the same time.  Tactile expression of truth...my oldest son is very analytical.  He is transparent and literal.  He likes to know derivitives in Latin and X-factors in math.  "If I do this, then this will happen....right mom?".   I have told him over and over again that one thing does always lead to another.  I have tried to explain the concept the Uunexplained and Unaccounted for.  I don't want him to think that things are always so predictable.  But there is a Trust issue here.

When I have given it my all....sprinted to the end with chest heaving due to loss of air...felt the burn of my legs and fatigue in my core.....and still hear, "Bev, you came up short.  You didn't make it"...will I choose to be mad or choose to pass my broken body to the One who was meant to carry me across the finish line?  Choose to give my self to the one who created me....who created my "best" and is still teaching me how to use this body of mine.   My best is still my self, yet His best is more than I could ever hope for.  Yes...my best is not good enough.  YOU are enough Lord! Allow me to trust that You have me in your hands.  Trust that and believe that You are my "enough".
  Press this verse into my heart....


2 Corinthians 10:5
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Yes!  That's it!

The start of a new day

Part of all things new is a sense of loss.  I watched my littlest girl go off to school today for the first time.  I have kept her home these past few years to sow into her little life and pour into my life a gift that I will always cherish....our precious time together.  I called her my little "partner" as we were rarely separated during the day.  She is the third out of four kids to attend school, so it's "time" I guess.  She practically RAN to the classroom today.  I watched her embrace her new surroundings, her new teacher, and comfort an old friend who was sad.  I remarked to my husband how brave she looked.  I turned the corner and cried a little as I watched my Jilly grow today.  I am so happy for her.  She is getting to experience life on a whole new level at a Christian school that teaches Grace and Love through Jesus.  It's only four hours a day, but she is grateful to be a part of what the "big kids" do.  I am thankful that God grows us up in due time.  I am thankful that I get to see my kids be excited about learning and being with friends.  I am perhaps most thankful that these brothers and sisters run to the car and jump in when's school's out and hug eachother like they have been away from eachother for years!  It's the start of a new year!

Looking up

Yesterday my youngest son decided to try his hand at tree climbing.  He managed to get into the tree just enough to get stuck.  Our other three kids have mastered the art of the climbing tree in our front yard.  They wisk their way to the top and yell, "Here I am world!".   Without fear they climb and sway with the branches in the warm summer wind.  I stand far from the tree with the kids in direct view...I hardly even have to look up to see them.  But Jack gets stuck and I have to go right under the tree to get him.  For a moment while I reach up to grab him I look up.  I look way up into the tree and see all its twisting branches and flowering leaves.  I see the sun all the way up through the tree's top.  For a moment I take it in.  The sun, the branches, the leaves, my son, his branch-like arms and legs...and me reaching for him the way the branches reach for the sun.  "I am the vine, you are the branches...." It seeps into my heart and brain and takes me by surprise again.  God loves me.  God made me.  God loves my kids.  God loves his people.  Even when this world seems fast and furious, over burdened and over limit, careless and worthless, scary and cold...God loves his creation.  I believe that God is real and that there is a Hope.  I lift my little Jack down and he takes my hand.  He smiles and says, "Thank you mommy....you help Jack".  I smile back.  Thank you God...you help me.