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Have you ever felt this way? You know deep down that you are forcing yourself to do something that you weren’t quite made for. You look around and it seems that everyone else fits just fine. Maybe you smile and nod, knowing just enough about the circumstances to play along, but your gut is telling you that you probably could be doing something somewhere else that would just fit better.

I’m not talking about things that are necessarily bad or even the worst choice for you, just that uncomfortable-doesn’t-quite-fit feeling, but you are forcing yourself to continue. Maybe it’s a job that you have stayed in just a little too long or maybe it is a hobby that you feel obligated to continue because you spent all that money on supplies. It might even be that you just know there is something that you are supposed to be doing and haven’t tried yet.

Change can be hard and scary whether it is the choice to stop something old or begin something new. For myself, when I make the choice to stop an activity a little voice can start whispering that I am a failure. This unhelpful voice tells me all of the reasons I haven’t succeeded at whatever it is, even if I sincerely gave it my best effort or have sincerely decided to remove it from my life! I have something similar happen when I begin a new venture. An entire catalog of reasons I am going to fail pops up in my mind. I begin in my own strength to swat them like irritating flies. It usually doesn’t take long in either of these scenarios for me to exhaust my own efforts and remember to give all of my negative thoughts over to God.

On the other side of the wrestling with change there is amazing blessing. God uses change in our lives to grow us closer to Himself. When we follow His guidance in our lives into His plans for us we can experience the joy of living in just-the-right-fit. I have been in both places in my life. I spent too many years trying to hammer myself into the spot I thought God wanted me. Recently, I have had the joy of being in the me-shaped place He had planned all along. I pray that if you haven’t found this place in God’s family yet, that you will also be led by Him into a very uniquely designed you-shaped space.

“I praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well.” Psalm 139:14

It’s that time of year again. My little Leprechauns are plotting the demise of their kinfolk on their annual visit to our house. It is hilarious to watch my nine and ten year olds, both redheads themselves and looking very like their nemeses, create elaborate traps. This will be the year that my children finally catch those pesky Leprechauns!

I think the Irish roots are especially strong in my nine year old. He is a wonderful, rambunctious, energetic little boy who drives us all absolutely crazy! And it doesn’t bother or dissuade him one iota when his siblings get frustrated with him. He just happily bounces away, off to irritate the next sibling.

In preparation for St. Patrick’s Day, I looked up some Irish sayings. As I read through them, the philosophy of my ancestors came through, again reminding me of my son. Despite difficulties that he encounters in his life, he always bounces back cheerful and ready for the next adventure. One saying in particular reminded me of him:

May your heart be warm and happy

With the lilt of Irish laughter

Every day in every way

And forever and ever after.

My son has been blessed with a warm and happy heart, which he gladly shares with those around him. I love that about him and honestly seek to grow my own heart in this way. God has done an amazing transformation of my heart over my life, slowly turning it from a heart of stone into a heart of flesh that (I hope) more closely resembles God’s own heart for me. This change has not always been easy, honestly most of the time it has been painful, but God has used that pain in transformative ways and there has been joy on the other side.

The mean little Leprechauns of negativity still show up every now and then to try to sabotage the softening of my heart. In those times the example my son sets has helped remind me that life doesn’t have to stay dark and gloomy. Rainclouds produce rain, which make rainbows and according to my son, there are pots of gold at the end of those!

May green be the grass you walk on,

May blue be the skies above you,

That pure be the joys that surround you,

May true be the hearts that love you. ~Irish Blessing

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26

Have you ever been convinced that the sky is purple? I have. For the longest time, I was absolutely sure that the sky was purple. People would attempt to tell me about the blue above. They would tell me all about the white clouds with the blue backdrop, but I wouldn’t believe them. When I looked up, all I saw was purple.

Then one day I woke up, looked outside and…blue sky! I was dumbfounded. I had been holding onto my purple-sky belief so tenaciously that I had never allowed any other option into my thinking. As I gazed at the azure arc, I couldn’t help but feel regret for some of the harm my incorrect belief had caused.

Now, obviously, (I hope) the purple-sky-belief is a metaphor. However, I have held some false beliefs that have been just as blatantly untrue. Unfortunately, this has happened to me more than once in my life. Some mistaken beliefs I have held onto more tightly and fiercely, (and to different degrees of destructiveness in my life) than others, but even small stubbornesses have caused their share of problems.

The strange thing is that even though I know this tendency about myself, it is too easy to look at other people sometimes and be extremely critical of their beliefs. From my perspective, their beliefs are so far off-base that they should be obvious to them. Instead of trying to meet someone where they are at and really try to hear how they came to their belief, it can be so much easier to criticize from a distance. I am very thankful that when I have held some majorly incorrect beliefs, I have had loving friends and mentors gently lead me to the truth.

There is someone else who is devoted to us knowing the truth as well, someone who knows us even better than we know ourselves because He is the one who created us. Jesus knows all of the twists and turns in our lives, all of the hurts and barriers that can keep us from the truth and ultimately from peace. Because that is what real truth creates in our lives–peace. Jesus said that He is the way, the truth and the life. He came as truth that leads to life and peace in our souls. This is really good news. First, because that means there is real, knowable truth to be found and secondly Jesus wants to help us find it through a relationship with Him.

I know that I most likely still have purple-sky-beliefs in my own life, but I am trying to be more open to my husband, friends, mentors, professors and especially Jesus pointing them out to me. It is not easy to let go of deeply held beliefs or to even have the desire to examine our beliefs, but I pray that we will be able to see clearly the truth that Jesus offers all of us.

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in His holy people, and His incomparably great power for us who believe.” Ephesians 1:18-19a

I have an embarrassing habit. When I am at a friend’s house and I grab a cup for water or coffee, I always check the inside to see if it’s clean! I really hope none of my friends have noticed me doing this (although I guess I am outing myself now). It has absolutely nothing to do with their housekeeping abilities or any doubts of mine about their dishwashing habits. Rather, it results from the fact that at my house my children are responsible for washing my dishes and the level of irresponsibleness varies from child to child so that checking the inside of cups has become an ingrained habit.

I love not having to do dishes all of the time. For the most part, the older children do a thorough job. The younger ones though, do not seem to realize that if an item comes out of the clean dishwasher still dirty, it does not magically become clean in the cupboard. I have saved myself from many a gross incident by checking before using a cup or silverware.

As my children mature, they become more responsible and they do a better job with all of their chores. I will need to do less checking of my dishes in the future. Right now though, it is still my job to be checking the insides of my children themselves. As a parent, I try to make sure I check in regularly with their hearts. Some of my kids are quieter than others and if I am not alert, they can slip through the cracks especially in the shadow of a more needy or demanding sibling. It is important that I find times, or create times with each child so they can share how they are feeling or just get a chance to connect with me.

Again, as my children have grown older this also looks different. With my two oldest I am learning how to move from constant “Mom” mode into more of a friend/mentor/encourager. This is not always easy, there are many, many times that I want to just grab my scrub brush and get to work on their insides! At these times I try to take a deep breath and remind myself that God has always kept my children in His hands and that He loves them even more than I do. Better than that, He knows them better than I do and will protect and guide them. I love the verse that says, “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.” II Timothy 1:12b

This is not a Southern thing, as in, “Why bless your heart!” I am not talking about actually blessing our problems. Rather, I realized the other day that most of my problems and worries come from all the blessings I have been given.

I have eight children. While this is a huge blessing and I am very grateful for them, they do come with problems, some more than others! Now that I have two technically adult children, three teenagers, and three elementary age kids, I worry more than ever. It was honestly a lot easier in many ways when they were all younger…at least I knew where they all were all the time. Because of my husband’s job, we also have two houses. I know how that sounds, “Oh poor me,” but when you have two houses it is actually very difficult to remember where your stuff is! The list goes on: I have food, I have clothes, my kids have clothes, I have gone back to school, we homeschool our children, we have jobs and on and on.

I don’t know why, but it all of a sudden struck me the other day that pretty much everything I worry about is a blessing. What a wonderful problem to have! Changing my view just a little, like adjusting a child’s kaleidoscope, makes a HUGE difference.

God thank You for the children to raise and pour my life into. Thank You for the messes they make because they are active, healthy children. Thank You for all of the clothes we get to wash and the shoes we get to pick up and put away—we have more than one pair each. Thank You for the food we are able to buy that makes our kitchen and dishes dirty. Thank You that we all have jobs or a vocation from You. Thank You for the opportunity I have had to go back to school. Thank You for my children’s ability to learn, for some of them it doesn’t come easy, but they have made huge strides.

I know not everyone is blessed in the same way and that so many people in this world have real, terrible problems. Some problems do not stem from blessings, but from the lack of them. So God, I would also pray that I would be generous with the blessings You give me. Besides not turning them into problems or things to worry about, I ask that I would hold them with open, generous hands. That instead of seeing my blessings as problems to be solved, I would see them as gifts to be shared.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” James 1:17

As I have told you all in the past, my family takes their pie very seriously. Just this Thanksgiving we made over 30 pies! After a day or so of blissful indulgence, my seventeen-year-old math whiz announced that he thought he was now 1% pumpkin pie. He had weighed himself prior to all the pie consumption and I guess he figured out how much pumpkin pie weighs and voila, 1% pumpkin pie!!!

As his mother, I thought this was incredibly adorable of course. However, it got me to thinking about what I am made up of. (Although, I did try to avoid doing my own pie+turkey+mashed potatoes math!) Besides the extra “fluff” that the holidays can add physically, what are my insides made up of, my spirit and soul?

I think we have all heard that what we take in can become part of who we are, our personality and character. Who we choose to be around matters as well. As cliché as it is, what we watch and consume on social media also forms our thoughts and informs our emotions. When we are stressed or under pressure it is unfortunately our worst selves that manifest, bringing with them all of the negative we have allowed to become part of us. But what if we were made from something else, something good?

This all came together in my thoughts when I was listening to a sermon about slowing down. This topic is always a good reminder for me. I have come a long way in this area and I am now able to rest more, sit more and think more deeply, but the pastor had some really good insights. One of those was about choosing what I am ingesting and allowing to become a part of me. If I am regularly reading God’s word, the Bible, it will become a part of myself. When I am in a tight place a lot more of Jesus would come out rather than me. Another idea was to listen. It is not enough to just read through the Bible each day just because that is what we are supposed to do. I need to listen as I read and even ask questions of God. I can ask Him to show me His word in a new way, I can ask Him about things I don’t understand in the Scriptures. It becomes much more interactive and relational.

As we enter into another new year, I am going to continue to pursue this kind of consuming (while hopefully working off some of my physical consuming from the holidays!) and make it a point to not just read the Bible each day, but to really ingest and chew on it until it becomes a part of me. I pray that this year will be a year of deepening relationship with Jesus for all of us and that unlike my son who was only 1% pie, we could be 100% Him!

“And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:19