I love being dust!

There is so much expectation on people today.  Expectations to be supermom, superwife, superdaughter, supermodel.... fill in the blank.  We are expected to be amazing at everything!  Good grief!  Go onto Pinterest for just a little while, and you will see what I mean.  I am expected to be able to keep my house immaculate and make sure it's decorated for every holiday to the tee.  I should have a home cooked, healthy meal for my family every night.  I should have my homemade curtains and my children's framed art work hanging on the walls.   I should do science experiments with my child on a regular basis.  Don't forget!  I also should have the perfect body, be exercising daily, and NEVER eat sugar!  Oh but make sure you have cookies for your children, but don't eat them yourself or you will get fat!  My sister and I joked one time that we should start a Pinterest for "real moms."  Instead of posting things like, "today I decorated my entire child's room in a butterfly theme and we made flax seed and spinach salmon (and everyone loved it!  ha!), took my children to the park, and I volunteered my time folding all the bulletins at church today"....  we should take pictures of our toilets before and after and caption it "today I got my toilet clean and....  and my children are alive and fed!"  I realize that in actuality I am the one who puts most of these expectations on myself.  I am thinking this is probably true for most people.  We have such high expectations of being the best in everything.  I juggle so many hats and so many balls in my life.  I realize that's my own fault.  I have so much trouble saying no to anyone even when my plate is already overflowing.  If I hear someone needs something done, I still try to figure out a way that I can help.  I feel that I fail in so many ways.  I drop the ball so many times.  Proverbs 24:16 says, "A just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief."  I have heard a few sermons on this recently.  A just man falleth seven times.  It doesn't say a just man doesn't fall.  It says he falls seven times.  Goodness, I feel I do that in a day or sometimes more.  But what's next in that verse?  "and riseth up again."  Here's the difference between a just man and a wicked man.  A just man riseth up again.  You know, sometimes it takes me a little longer than other times, but I like to think that I get back up, brush myself off, ask God to help me, and I move on.  I am a VERY sensitive person....  for those who know me well, you are probably thinking, "that's an understatement!"  I don't like being so sensitive so much of the time.  I wish things could roll off my back like they do with my husband.  I wish I didn't read into when someone has a sour look on their face, and I instantly think I must have done something wrong.  But you know what....  even though I need to work on not taking things so personal, being sensitive also makes me who I am.  I am very sensitive to other people's needs and feelings.  It pains me to see others hurting and I love to help comfort those I can or help those in need.  I run to those who are hurting and find it extremely easy to empathize and have compassion for them.  I will bend over backwards for those I love.  Yes, this gets me in trouble many times and I need to learn to say no, but I am thankful that God has given me a heart for others.  Psalm 103:14 says "For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth we are dust."  I LOVE this!  You might think at first, "He says we are dust!  How is that a good thing?"  He knows we are dust.  He knows we are going to fall and fail and mess up and not be Ms. Perfect.  He knows we aren't perfect moms or perfect wives or perfect friends or perfect sisters or perfect housekeepers or perfect Christians or perfect anything!  When anyone else expects us to be perfect, HE knows we are going to mess up.  He is not shocked when we mess up or drop a ball or fall or down or forget.  He knows we are nothing but dust!  You know what else, He loves His dust!  He loves His dust so much He died for it!  One of my favorite verses to share when I tell others of His love is Romans 5:8 "But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."  He knew every single thing we are capable of.  He knew we would be nothing but dust and mess up all the time.  Yet He still chose to go the cross and die for us.  Why?  Because He knew that we are nothing but dust!  He knew that if He didn't die, we would never be able to get to Heaven without Him.  He loves his "dust" that much!  I love being dust!  I love being His dust!

Caterpillars

I started a garden a few months ago.  I love to see a garden grow and God's beauty through it!  I love to see God make a cucumber grow and provide food for us.  This morning I went out to check on my garden and found some caterpillars on my plants, a struggle I've been battling the last few weeks.  I was excited as I found a cocoon on one of the leaves!  Why???  I'm a homeschool mom of 4.  I carefully picked it off and knew the kids were going to go crazy over it, which they did!  :-)  Then I continued my hunt to remove the caterpillars from my zucchini plant.  I kept finding more and more of these teeny tiny little green "worms" and happily plucking them off, adding them to the "science" pile.  After a few of my exciting finds, my excitement started to turn to frustration.  These caterpillars are the enemy; they are eating my plants, my food!  How dare they!  :-)  I continued pulling them off knowing that there was no way I could find all of them and they would lay more eggs and destroy more of my plants!  Arg!  Evil caterpillars!  Then I started thinking as I found 2 more cocoons...  What do these nuisances become?  Beautiful butterflies!  I am never annoyed by butterflies!   Butterflies are one of the most beautiful creatures and they stand for so many beautiful things.  Suddenly I was singing in my head, "He's still working on me!  To make me what I ought a be...." and I was thinking about how God transforms us as Christians from something ugly to something beautiful in His time.  I started thinking more about how so many people are in different "stages" in their Christian walk.  Some people have just accepted Christ as their Saviour and are still tiny little caterpillars.  Many days I feel like I'm still at this stage since I know I have so much to work on.  Some people have a lot of baggage in their lives and when they asked Jesus to be their Saviour, they had a lot that they slowly have to learn.  Sometimes these people can seem to be a "nuisance" because when they came to know Christ, they should have just suddenly known how to be just like Jesus!  I'm being facetious....  how many times do I expect someone to know what they should or shouldn't be doing?  Everyone is in a different "stage" in their walk.  A caterpillar doesn't just go from a tiny little egg to suddenly a big beautiful butterfly.  I need to gently love those around me and allow the Holy Spirit to show them or through me, show them, how to be more like Jesus.  I mean, really!  I have so much I need to work on myself!  In my mind, we don't ever fully become a butterfly until we go to be with Jesus.  So, in the meantime, aren't we all just caterpillars?  We are all sinners!  We all have done something wrong at some point in our lives.  God says we deserve to go to hell because we are sinners.  Heaven is perfect, so if He allows sin into Heaven, it's no longer perfect.  Jesus, God's Son and God Himself, lived a perfect life here on earth and then He sacrificed His life by dying on the cross and paying for our sins for us.  Then He rose again so we serve a living God who defeated death!  He paid it all for us!  If we accept Him as our payment, He now becomes our Saviour and God sees Jesus when He looks at us.  He washed our sins away and we are able to go to Heaven when we die.  So, as we are all "crawling" around here on earth, I need to remember to allow people grace where they are at and help them find the "nutrients" they need in God's Word and His truths.  Please Lord help me to see the butterflies you are making people into and love these little "caterpillars" around me even when they are sometimes annoying.  :-)