What love looks like...

I caught sight of love today.

It woke up early, before the sun, to feed the dog and start the coffee.

While I packed some lunches it woke the kids, fed them breakfast and made sure they were dressed and ready to go.

It struggled with a child who was refusing to cooperate but it staid the course and humbly apologized for a terse reaction.

It donned boots and went out in the wicked cold and started my van so it would be warm when I had to leave.

Then when the uncooperative child threw up on the way out the door it patiently consoled and settled the child on the couch while helping change plans for the day.

Today love will walk the journey of life with many people who are struggling along the way.

On the drive home, it will mentally transition from work to home so it's ready to fully engage after walking through the door into the chaos of dinner and bedtime with three sons who have no idea what it's like to work all day and then come home to requests and repetitive stories and meltdowns about dessert and homework.

Then it will gently tuck tired fussy children into bed and turn its attention to me. A woman who struggles because it's winter and another child is sick.

And after encouraging my heart, love will climb into bed and warm up my side first just as it has every night in every winter for the past 13 years.

And despite three pregnancies, three c-sections, years of nursing, a hysterectomy and an aging body, love will remind me that I'm beautiful despite what the world may say about beauty.

I caught sight of love today.
And it looked sacrificial, patient and kind.
And it will wake up and do it all over again tomorrow.
That is what real love and true romance looks like.

My Hope for 2015

I have to be honest and say that I'm not ringing in the new year with thoughts that this is going to be the best year yet.  Maybe because the many hard things of 2014 have made me cynical or maybe because turning 35 has made me more of a "realist."

I just know that 2015 will bring hard things and I will continue to struggle with the same things I did last year.  Anxiety and depression will continue to lurk around my heart every day.  I will lose ones I love because God will call them home or they will simply move away.  I will yell at my kids when I don't want to and argue with my husband over stupid things.  I will let my friends down when they need me most and I will complain even though my life is beautiful.

I will bring my sinful, selfish heart with me into this year, just like last year and all the years before.  No matter how many resolutions I make or how hard I try, I will fail.  (Aren't you glad you're reading this!?)

BUT....

I do have hope.

It's not in my ability to pull up my boot straps and make this year great.  It's not in my determination to be different or to find that one thing that will finally fix it all and I will be fulfilled and happy and "complete."  And it's not in those around me who this year will finally treat me and love me the way I want them to.

It's in this:

"Remember my affliction and my wanderings,

the wormwood and the gall!

My soul continually remembers it

and is bowed down within me.

But this I call to mind,

and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul,

'therefore I will hope in him.'"

(Lamentations 3:19-24)

The Lord is source of all hope.  I will fail myself and those around me but He never will.  I can bring my broken sinful heart to Him and He will change me in ways I could never change myself.  And every day that I fail to keep my resolutions He will still love me, shower me with mercy and grace and I will be able start fresh with every dawn.  He is more than enough through the bad days, the good days, the hard things, the happy things, the sunny, warm days, and the cold, rainy days.  

I know this to be true because every year I fail to keep my resolutions and I struggle to be the person I want to be and despair overruns my heart.  BUT God.

"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world,...."

I've tried all the self-help books, all the diets, and every resolution, yet I still have not achieved the full life I long for. 

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loves us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with him and seated us with him the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a results of works, so that no one may boast." 

Some of my favorite words in all of scripture.  But God. Where we fail, He shows up with mercy and in Christ gives us forgiveness and life.  I can't achieve it by my works, He gives it to me, as a gift.  Endless mercy, newness every day, hope.

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:1-10)

And He writes my story.  I am His creation and He helps me to walk in the way He created me to walk in.  And when I stumble...I fall back on mercy and start over again, and again, and again.

So, welcome to 2015!  May it be a year full of fresh restarts.  May every day begin with hope not just the first one.