Grace...and Happy Earth Day!

 Funny how different our days can be. For mothers, funny how different our minutes can  be. One moment the house is sparkling clean, a second later there is a sink full of dirty dishes and sticky peanut butter hand prints on the wall. One minutes we are giggling at the rise and fall of little voices, the next instant we are pounding our heads against the wall because the noise just won't stop!!! (you know what I'm talking about...when you feel like being put into a straight jacket would be pure relief.)
 One day is full of sunshine, the next rain. One meal is beautifully prepared with all sorts of good herbs and wholesomeness and "minced this" and "sauteed that", the next dinner is picked up through a drive thru window. The pee sheets are washed, another accident happens. The fridge is full, the fridge is empty. One day we are up to our eyeballs in company, the next week is full of isolation. Moments - always changing. Always compared to other moments - lots of guilt.
 It's pretty easy to feel conflicted. Am I a good mom? Am I a patient mom or a crazy person? Am I a playful mom or a lazy mom? Am I healthy and intentional with my decisions, or do I fly by the seat of my pants, throw caution to the wind and hope for the best outcome? One moment we are walkign through the house, enjoying the coolness of the hardwood floors on bare feet, the next instant we are writhing in pain from stubbing our big toe on the couch! Are my hormones balanced because this week I feel good and last week was just awful...am I a hypocrite because this week I have no bad feeling about anyone but last week I was so hurt by someone's words that I wanted to hide in a hole and not come out until that person moves to Europe.

What if I told you I think that everyone is a little bit of everything? How about if the truth came out and even the crunchiest of granola mom's admitted that they don't have everything figured out...they are just doing their best? What if I told you that the working mom who has to leave her littles all day to give back to the community or bring in a paycheck and doesn't have time to serve a four course meal is also doing her best? What if I told you, that just because there is a day that we throw caution to the wind, doesn't mean that we are unintentional about life, that when we have to splurge on an expensive water filter doesn't mean that we have lost all frugality.  If we don't do the three step skincare routine one night it doesn't mean that we are giving up on ourselves, if we go a week without taking a walk it doesn't mean that we are unconcerned about our health. What if just maybe not every single decision is a death sentence to our character or to our lives or our children's lives or our morals?

 What if I told you that none of us are perfect - but we all share something in common?

 We all need grace for each other. 

We all need fellow moms to have our backs, to say "you are such a good mom, dirty dishes or not. You care about your kids and the Father cares about you." What if we could all quite comparing and have grace and love for ourselves that our children could see that it's simply "ok." What if we could stop listening to other or reading about others and saying "I don't agree with this point you are making" and instead say "wow, you are doing such a good job right where you are, caring about those you love, caring for yourself - good job mama!" (I mean, do we really want to put ourselves out there and be vulnerable just to be bashed and told 'I don't agree?' I sure don't.)

What if we could read blogs and realize that the pictures in them are just small glimpses of a very complicated life...that the people in the photos have runny noses sometimes, are impatient, have frequent bouts of heartburn ... the flowers aren't always blooming in the garden, the sun isn't always setting perfectly in the horizon, the view isn't always scenic, and not every single night of someones entire life is spent snuggled up on a couch under a grandmother's handmade quilt?

 What if I told you that sometimes life is very very good and beauty can't help but to be seen? But what if I told you that sometimes life can be very very ugly and we have to search for the good in the situation, in the person?

What if I told you that everyone in this entire world needs unconditional love? What if I told you that everyone in the world needs words of kindness, a helping hand, anonymous charity, a listening ear, grace to start over, mercy, forgiveness?

What if I told you that we can give it. We can't be everything to everyone, but we can be love to the one next to us, the one reading our words, the one watching our videos, the one far away that needs a few bucks to make ends meet. We can be love because God loves us.

 We all have dreams, we have wishes, desires, longings. We feel broken at times, pulled apart by demands. Sometimes we are so put together we can conquer the world (tackle play dates, go to the grocery store with ALL of the kids, can several quarts of apple butter...in my case make bone broth as a vegetarian.) We have different roads to travel, different pasts to work through, lots of futures ahead of us. But what we all need, all of the time, is grace for others and ourselves.

~ * Alyssa Spring *~

P.S. Happy Earth Day - we live on an amazing planet that was created especially for us, lets be conscious of how we treat it...try to take care of the gift. :)