No Grace For You!

You must read my title like the “Soup Nazi” in the well-known Seinfeld episode would say it:

“No Soup For You!” 

Only today it’s “No Grace For You!”

That’s how I feel. I don’t have the grace or desire to give it to my child. I’m irritated. I want to control and I’m nagging. And, I feel justified in it.

It feels ugly. I want to break out of this mindset, but then I start thinking about the situation at hand and my heart feels dark again.

So I do what I know I must. I pray.

“Lord, help me to love my child. Help me to have grace and compassion. I know it must come from You because it is not natural to me.”

Prayer is not a magic rabbit’s foot where you instantly feel better or get your emotions in check. Even still I go to my Maker and acknowledge that I know He is in control and He orders all things for our good. I do believe this, but I tell Him I don’t like it right now.

Praise Jesus, He is big enough to handle our doubts and anger toward Him. And, Praise Him, that He actually wants me to come with such real and raw emotion.

It is there that He meets me in it. 

Grace He pours out as I open Ann Voskamp’s Christmas devotional book, The Greatest Gift.  I am a day behind – on Day 8, even though it’s December 9th – but lo and behold, there on Day 8 are the words written He wanted me to hear today.

Words of truth and grace written just for me and for my child.

“Ours is the God who is drawn to those who feel down. Ours is the God who is attracted to those who feel abandoned. Ours is the God who is bound to those who feel broken…This is grace.”

“…He comes to us not in spite of our failings – but precisely because of them.”

“The wonder of all this – God looks at you at your lowest and loves you all the way up to the sky.”

With abounding love and grace He draws near. Not to those who think they are perfect and don’t need a Savior. But to those who are broken and hurting and failing and empty. To those who know they can’t do it themselves. To those who know they need Christ’s righteousness and steadfast love.

I don’t love my child perfectly and with never-ending grace. But He does! And He loves me, too, despite it.

“Love came down to help us in our helplessness.”

Thank you, Jesus, that you never say, “No Grace for You” like I do, but instead keep pouring out more!