Skip to main content

Daily Grace



This month I've been reading in the Old Testament, most recently in Leviticus.  What a complicated book!  So many rules and regulations!  And how often did the Israelites fall short of them.  Yet God in His infinite mercy and grace continued to give them opportunity and opportunity to return to Him, to turn away from their sins.  While they did experience chastisement, they also received forgiveness and so many second chances that I can't count them all.  All because God loves His children!

This always makes me think of how far I fall short of God's standards each and every day.  When I fail to spend time with Him first thing.  When I'm grumpy and short with my family.  When I choose to gossip about someone.

And yet when I come to Him, humbling myself and confessing those sins, He always welcomes me with open arms.  He doesn't say, "Well, I'll forgive you, but I won't forget about it."  Or, "Yes, I love you, but you'd better not do that again."  He just loves me, forgives me, picks me up.

Then this makes me think of my own children ...who don't always follow my "rules".  Who make the same bad choice time and again.  Who forget what I asked them to do the second I walked away.

Then come the apologies, sometimes half-hearted, to which I haven't always responded graciously.  I cringe when I think about how I have sometimes accepted their efforts conditionally, "forgiving" them yet reminding them of each thing they did wrong.  Just to make sure they got the point, you know.

So unlike our Heavenly Father.  Such a poor reflection.

While I know I must chastise my children and discipline them in the ways they should go, I so want to better reflect God to them.  To pick them up and dust them off when they blow it.  To cover their mistakes with love and grace.  To simply say "I forgive you and I love you".

Just like Jesus does for me every day.

*****

Thanks for joining me in the Thirty for 30 challenge today!  I hope you'll head over to There Is Grace and maybe even link up a post about how God has been speaking to you lately.
Labels:

Comments

Nancy@ThereIsGrace said…
I'm so thankful for God's mercies that are new every morning. I wish I could say the same of mine when it comes to my children!

Thanks for linking up and for the great words of encouragement today!
January 24, 2013 at 11:23 AM
Lora @ my blessed life said…
Yep, I haven't been feeling very merciful this morning. It's been a rough one:/
January 24, 2013 at 1:12 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Reading Game: A Review

I was excited to receive this review product recently, thinking my 1st-grade-son could really benefit and enjoy it a lot. And I was right! He is having so much fun with this game. The Reading Game is a fast-paced memory card game using words. The game comes with 6 sets of memory cards with 6 corresponding readers. The idea is for you and your student to play memory with each set of cards (playing 6 rounds with each set), after every 2 rounds your student then reads 2 test sentences to see how he is retaining the new words he is learning. After the whole set has been played, he is then ready to read the corresponding reader...and has learned 30 new words! By the time your student has played every set of cards and read every reader, he will have learned 180 words. Of the 25 most common English words, 23 are on that list; of the 50 most common words, 42 are on that list. So this little game of reading really does prepare your student well. The readers are illustrated with cute
Post a Comment
Read more

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat
23 comments
Read more

Door Hanger Chore Charts

My kids have had a chore chart for a while.  It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it.  However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it.  Plus it's a little bulky.   When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it!  It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make.   I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course.  They  have these little wooden door hangers for .79.  I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each.  I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing.   I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had).  Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will clip on the right direction.   The left
17 comments
Read more