Giving Grace.

I'm ignoring the fact that:

I hate the current look of my blog.

I have unfinished posts that I have yet to get up, including one for my SEPTEMBER birthday girls.

I don't care. Right now, I'm writing about what I want to write about right now.

Anyway...

Marriage is teaching me lots about life- stuff I feel like I should have been able to figure out without getting married, but maybe that's why God chose for us to get hitched so young.

Before I got married, before I was engaged, before I knew brian... I KNEW I would one day be Super Wife. Super Wife is perfect. Perfect house (perfect decorating, perfect laundry, perfect bathrooms, perfect floor), perfect meals, perfect body, perfect heart.

SHOCKER. I'm not Super Wife. Nor will I ever be.

The sweet Lord was kind enough to show me this reality in a gentle way. I began a new job about a month ago. It has been fun and interesting and challenging and utterly draining in every way. When I get home, I am absolutely exhausted. I want to curl up on the couch with b and do nothing unfun... like taking care of the house, for example. It has just been tough for me to adjust to this schedule of long, hard hours. The b man has been a champ about this- never mentioning the fact that our floors haven't been cleaned in 2 weeks. So the other day I sent him an email while he was at work... just thanking him for being patient with me and promising that I would soon figure out my new schedule and how to fit everything in and telling him that I desire deeply to serve him. I really didn't think much of it- in fact, it was a little selfish of me... I was sort of trying to prove to myself that I would, in fact, return to being Super Wife as soon as I figured out my schedule. B replied with the sweetest words... thanking me and telling me how impressed he is with me and all the ways I serve him. He said all the things I thought husbands said to Super Wife.

Being married isn't about being Super Wife. It's about figuring it out together, and loving each other through that. It's about giving grace.

It's so much like our walk with our Savior.

Oh how I send those subconscious messages to my Jesus... messages full of "sorry but I'll get better soon" and "just wait- I'll prove myself" and "you're going to be so impressed with me." I know better.

I know the sweet grace He rains down on me.

I know He bids me to come and rest.

And to surrender.

And to grasp that he doesn't tolerate me, but he adores me.

And to see that His power is made perfect in my weakness.

I'm in the most wonderful Bible Study this semester (you will hear more about those ladies in later posts) and we are studying Ephesians- very slowly, word by word, verse by verse. It is taking us forever to get through our book and I love it. I love Paul, first of all. And really studying his words and having to be diligent about the details even when I feel lazy is enriching my soul. Paul gets the Gospel. Every chapter in Ephesians is the Gospel. Paul is so incredibly humble, and he pleads with Christians to begin to see their helplessness... so that they may begin to see God's love.

Praise God for Paul's words and Brian's love... both of which are pointing me to the love of Christ... the love that put my Jesus on a cross.

"so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-- that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

Amen.