Absent April

Has this year been blowing by for anybody else? I mean, it is May already. What?!? How, I ask, HOW did that happen!? I can't believe it. I also can't believe I've gone through the whole month of April and have just, like, not been on here at all. I don't know--every time I had a break there was something else I wanted to do and so I barely even opened the computer last month. It was actually kind of nice, except that I think I have like 3,000 unread messages in my email box so that's a little overwhelming.

Wow. So here I am, not even sure where to start except to say that sometimes I wish I had more time in my day to do all the things I want to get done. Even now I have an indefinite period of time before the littles wake...I'm guessing only ten to fifteen minutes more... and there's so much I want to say! I want to sit down to coffee with you and ask how you are. I want to know what you've been up to, what you've been thinking, and how God has been working in your life. Do you know? Or are you, like me, so caught up in the here-and-now-just-trying-to-make-it-through-the-day that you lose sight of the Big Picture? It is something I want to change.

I want to step back and be reminded of how all the little things make the beautiful canvas that makes a masterpiece. How often I forget that? How often I need to be reminded that it is in the very midst of the mundane that beauty is waiting to be discovered. Artists spend hours and hours getting one single part of a painting just the way they want it. They start over, come back to square one, and continue to work until it is just right. Their sweat and blood goes into their art. I'm sure there are moments they believe it's just never going to happen. It's not worth all this effort. They can't do it. Yet, when they persevere, beauty comes into fruition. Can you relate?

I tell you in the middle of this parenting thing I find myself grasping for the lifeline that is this: God has a plan and is making a masterpiece. He is good. He makes beautiful things. That includes me and my marriage and my babies and my family. When things are messy and busy and stressful...it is a piece of the picture but it is not the Picture. In those moments we need to pan back and catch a glimpse of the bigger picture...we aren't going to completely ruin our kids because we haven't been on our A-game lately. God has not forsaken us because our Bibles are dusty and we have jumbled up our priorities (again). There is grace and goodness and renewed strength and mercy to be found, my friend. I have no idea what you need to hear today, but maybe it is this: You are loved right now. You will never ever be loved more than you are today, and you will never ever be loved less than you are today. God's love for you is full and rich and vibrant. And it is constant. An ever-flowing waterfall of grace waits to welcome you in, and bring you life. Let us stand under it today, and let it wash over us...whatever is holding us back or binding us down, may it be washed down the drain by the waterfall of God's grace.

Deep Love,