Grace Upon Grace: Goldfish for a Year.

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Original post started in July 2018

My neighbor and I were standing at the counter, both shaking our heads, half complaining, half encouraging, about the craziness of this season of life and the pressures with it.  Its shocking to me how many pressures I feel, how quickly and often I feel the weight and intensity of comparison, and how much of my day is influenced by discouragement or despair.  Satan has grabbed every stronghold possible, and tugged me down and down, and pummeled me on the ground over and over again.

I try to stand up, laugh it off, and shake my head.  But then he comes at me from another angle and I'm struck and saddened and fallen.  Not on my knees, not in prayer as I should, but in despondency and defeat.

I was rattling over all this to a friend, about a million of frustration with my kids and my inability to make them happy, to get them fed and slept.  To pretty much do anything.  And there screamed Judah, wanting more goldfish, the only thing he'd eat for the last few hours.

That's when she quipped the grandest truth of the day:  "It's not like when you get to heaven, God's going to care if your kid ate goldfish for a year.  He's not going to ask you that."

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So this slogan, from this passing conversation years ago, has become my filter, my mantra for years.  When things feel big, when decisions feel weighty, when I am out of grace, I remember this grace: Goldfish for a year.  God's grace is bigger than it all.  The filter relaxes my angst, releases my self-righteousness, and softens the comparison.  In the end, God isn't concerned about all these other things, nor will he judges us about all the other choices, or how we lived them.  He wants our hearts.  Solely set on him, loving him.  That's all that matters in the end, at the pearly gates.  Not if we ate: goldfish for a year.

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(Ranted below on November 2018)

*** No time to edit, rewrite, etc....  Just starting to put it out there...  ***
** Probably going to offend just in the reading... 
because we all live in the offense and defense...
But read and clarify, down to the importance - the end"

Motherhood has become one of the most divisive roles of my life.    It's shocking, hurtful, interesting, and surprising how incredibly much it slices and splices, yet yearns for grace and empathy.  

Motherhood is a constant sizing up of what one says, how one does it, and added (unsolicited) snips towards how it should be... better, best.  Even if tempered, with effort is to filter, it's still so incredibly apparent sensitive, how we raise kids or love our children or live in our homes, that I duck back in my shell, lock my door, cut out friends, and fear most conversations about children or motherhood or family.

The divisive lines fall in every conversation.  Quit frankly, on her side and mine.  Our stones in hand, though we pretend their down.  Defensive, offensive, quiet and outspoken.  We stand behind our battle lines, tuck back inside our home.  Queen of our castles, my mother-in-law would say.  Feeling threatened by others, and proving we know the best way.  For ours and yours and mines and hers.

The topics are intense, and vary along every single line.  

She breast-fed for three years, you bottled. She's serving organic while you're stuffing Oreo. She cuts peppers, you open a lunchable.  Every mother's margin in different, her children's demeanors are different.  Every mothers own home growing up was different, so her knowledge or training or accessibility to help or wisdom or food is different.

((As my mother in-law-says: fed.  Go for fed.  And as I say: keep them alive.  Sometimes that's all you can do: keep them alive.)). [Insert your judging here.]

Then there's books and school.  Homeschooling, public, private, or tutors...  Pretty spaces, new desks, or piles of papers and scattered pens.  Experiential learning or reading books, books, and more books...  ((To clarify: Jesus' mother had no books, read no books, could not read books!  And Jesus was God-man, so this was perfectly okay!))

That child likes the inside, this child lives outdoors.  That child dresses in Batman, this one lives in pink twirls.  That mom does crafts, play dough, and games in the home.  That mom does adventures and aquariums and zoos.  That child feels loved, and that one does too.

When we ALL get to heaven, Jesus will not ask us if we homeschooled or private schooled or Christian schooled or public schooled.  He won't ask if we breastfed or bottle fed, or lived schedules or spanked.  At heaven's gates it won't matter if its Whole Foods or sweet tea or candy or McDonalds.  He won't measure your heart on family programs or adventures or traditions or holidays.  He'll never ask about diapers styles, dance programs, or holes in the knees.

When we ALL get to heaven, what Jesus will do is see faces, hearts, eyes, and years.  His grace, his blood, covers all those choices, all those divisions, and blots them all away.   

He will ask instead if you love Him.  His Grace.  

Not if your kid ate goldfish for a year.

Grace Upon Grace.