Things I Had to Learn on My Own

You know in life there are certain things that people can teach you, train you and help you to learn. We go to primary school to learn the basics, we go to high school to learn in depth and then we go to college to learn about our degree and what's going to serve us for the rest of our life. However, in this life there are things that we have to learn on our own. These are things that no person can teach us by their experience. So here are a few things that I've had to learn on my own in my 36 years of life:

1. Jesus will never let you  down:
I've had to learn that every single person in this world is going to let you down at some point or another. People are going to disappoint you whether they are your family, your friends, your spouse, your children, etc. But there is one person that will never let you down, never disappoint you, never leave you, never forsake you, never hurt you, never fail you...that is Your Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ! He has been there for me through ups and downs, thick and thin, good and bad, happy and sad, and although I cannot physically see Him I can feel Him. I can feel His comfort during the midst of grief. I can feel His happiness during times of rejoicing. I can feel His peace when I am in the midst of a storm. He is my comforter, my deliverer, my calm and place of rest and rescue!

2. Marriage Takes Three:
When my husband proposed to me, you couldn't have found a happier woman on the planet. My mother and I went shopping for my dress and at the dress shop there was a sweet little lady who gave me a piece of paper with a poem written on it entitled "Marriage Takes Three". At the time I didn't realize the significance of what that poem actually meant but I thought how sweet of her, a stranger who barely knows me, to give me something like this for my wedding. See I never really thought about marriage in a Godly form or even as a Heaven Sent gift. I was raised in a broken home, saw several divorces, abuse, neglect and brokenness, so God was rarely talked about, mentioned or really taught as someone to rely on through marriage. It took several years into my own marriage to realize what that poem was all about. We had some rocky times in the beginning of our marriage and it was all because we did not have that third person as part of our everyday living throughout our marriage. We didn't realize how important the third party was. But now almost 14 years into our marriage I can honestly say that we have one of the strongest, loving, God-led marriages that I know. We put him at the center of everything that we do from raising our children to me becoming a stay-at-home mother and wife to the decisions that we make as a family. That poem was probably one of the best wedding gifts I could have ever received because looking back at it now I realize that that was just the starting point of realizing what I wanted my marriage to be.

And last but not least...
3. Motherhood is Messy
Y'all can I just say that there are some days that I want to throw the towel in ( but that would make more laundry for me), ship my kids off to a military school and just be done. You know for the most part my kids are very well behaved we've raised them right, we've taught them to use their manners and be respectful, and we've taught them right from wrong. However there are those days when everybody's at each other's throats, nobody's happy with what's put on the table and Mommy can't do anything right. Those are the days that it's hard, those are the days that no one told you about, and those are the days that you have to experience for yourself. Not most of the time those days are few and far between but they will happen and they do happen. Motherhood is messy! But even in the messiness and even in the mundane events, chores and activities of everyday motherhood, I would choose this over any other job in the world. Am I the perfect mom? No! Do I try to be? No! Are my kids perfect? No! And we don't try to be. I don't want to be a Pinterest mom I want to be a Priceless mom, one that can't be replaced with things that are store bought or things that can be made. I want to be the mom who sits and reads to my children at night who loves them in their wrongs and who gives them grace each and every day to start over with a clean slate. That's what my heavenly father does for me. He gives me grace even when I make mistakes, even when I do wrong, even when I sin he extends that unmerited favor of grace to me when I don't deserve it.
His love can't be made, His love can't be bought at Hobby Lobby or Walmart and I don't have to earn His love, it's a free gift that was paid for on the cross!

If you don't know him today and have a personal relationship with him I pray that you will get down on your knees and ask him to come into your heart, let him know that you trust Him with your life and that you love him and that you believe that He died on the cross for your sins. No one can make this decision for you, and no one else can save you but Jesus Christ. My salvation is not your salvation, my salvation is not my children's salvation. You need to experience God's love and God's saving grace for yourself and I pray you will do so today!