simple graces of the every-day

It's the simple graces that keep surprising me. Like when I somehow get myself up and tackle the messy kitchen. Or when I feel like my exhaustion had kids and somehow got more exhausted but then I magically get the vacuuming done or tidy my daughter's room. Or even when the outlook for dinner appears utterly bleak and I throw in the towel only to find myself last-minute spurred or inspired with a menu for the night. Days like this keep happening. And it astonishes me. I find myself doing the domestic life of a stay at home wife and mom when so many mornings I wake up with no energy, no motivation, nothing in mind but how the bed was vacated way way too soon. It's not like my days suddenly turn into rainbows and daisies. Usually these simple graces come amidst my battle with a toddler who interrogates or pleads me mindless and a one-year-old who decides at my frailest moments that it's time to declare hunger or get needy. This doesn't describe every day. There are good ones and bad ones. For instance, my children are contentedly playing together even now while I gather some time to myself in heaping armfuls and attempt to write.

But I know these days are filled with God's simple graces. That each of these small accomplishments abound from something that lives inside me and does not merely get mustered from my own great determination. No, I am brittle, bare, and beyond "E" on my fuel tank. I am entirely human. Most mornings I'm splashed awake with the reality that I've got absolutely nothing to be up early again, to do the day at home with my kids, to say goodbye to my husband shortly upon rising, and to forge another day on my own. I try to keep it real. Days when I don't even do a formal "sit in the quiet with Jesus" and days when I'm attempting just that while my daughter continues to earnestly include me in her own game of make-believe or makes her requests known... numerous times, usually the stark truth of my depleted strength gets communicated in one way or another. And I'm so so SO thankful that He's way more present and tuned in with my every-day life than I often even begin to recognize. Because these days can be hard... and even confusing when I grapple with how I just can't seem to do this "mom and wife" thing very well, how I just want a day off, how I miss certain freedoms that have been sacrificed for this arduous task of parenting, how I just don't seem to have the love and the motivation to make it all more than it is and all that it could be.

I know a lot of the right answers to this pummeling internal talk. And I'm thankful God is there reminding me of them, using people near to me, and that His promises are always there to anchor life... and me. The days seem small, but He said to not despise them. Another early morning alone with my kids seems impossible, but He makes it happen. I may really mess up, but His mercy is ready and waiting when I come. I make it seem like these battles get resolved that quickly, but they often take a good deal of muddling. Just keeping it real. But I am so glad that He is far more real than all of the struggles and the toiling and the sin. And I am so glad that He is the One who makes the empty and nothing into "this is good." He did it in the beginning, and He works the miracles now--even now in the little ways of the every-day.

I so need Him to be that big for the battles that just seem tedious, for the selfishness that hits undeniably every morning. My tired self is leaning into Him now, hoping in His goodness and plan and provision and total control. And thankful for every time He shows up, His Spirit inside me getting me into the kitchen to cook, to clean, to even attempt to engage. I know that faithfulness is honored. And even that depends on His very own faithfulness. I am thankful He's more "here" than I'll ever comprehend. And I hope to witness it more and more.