While our girls are at school, these home halls echo my shrill voice, things I’ve said in a tone I should never use.

Hurry!

Stop!

Don’t!

And sarcasm.

Someone said, An English teacher should never speak sarcasm.

Neither should a mom, but I do.

I walk past their bedrooms, their morning lamps still glowing like dawn, and I ache inside.

I’m so hard on them, especially Selah,  because she reminds me of me and I want her to thrive in ways I didn’t.

I could do so much better.

But God is intolerant of my self-flogging.

It renders me useless to His Kingdom of Light, because in Him there’s no darkness at all.

So His Light finds me here….

Like yesterday when I lifted Selah’s lunch bag, it felt heavy.

There’s a peculiar compartment in the bottom of her bag, so I unzipped it, and Love spilled out everywhere, like a deck of cards.

Every note I’d written on her napkins since the beginning of the school year was in there.

She’d saved them, every single day.

I thumbed through them, blurry…

You spread joy everywhere you go.

I love to hear you sing.

You inspire me.

Enjoy being uniquely you.

I hope your day is as lovely as you are.

The evidence was literally stacked against me in my own handwriting, day after day, of trying to be a good mom.

God didn’t convince me so easily that I’m a good mom with a silly stack of one-liners…but He did rescue me with examples of something I’m doing right.

I’ll take it.

I’m still learning that He is for us—not against us—constantly presenting evidence in our favor so we’ll remember, He cheers for us.

Today, if He is so kind to stack evidence against your self-defeating thoughts and surprises you with the tiniest gift of mercy, take it.

Be that.

Be more of that.

 

---

The LORD is my strength and shield. I trust him with all my heart. He helps me, and my heart is filled with utter joy….

~ Psalm 28:7