not perfection

This summer was crazy. Why? I can't tell you exactly except that it felt as though the calendar filled up faster than during the school year. Which is super crazy because during the school year, I home school my kiddos and drive them to all their extracurriculars and teach piano lessons and semi-decently maintain my wife and mom duties. So you would THINK that the school year feels busier but nope.
Summer's ridiculous.

But I noticed something interesting this summer: my motivation for just about everything was extremely diminished, and yet God was constantly teaching me through conversations with amazing friends and through podcasts that I was trying to listen to 10 minutes at a time and books that I was reading through one chapter a week. Even in the small spaces, He was teaching me. But I struggled because where in the world was my push and motivation to write?!

And then *click!* - it was time to write! (I don't always understand the rhyme or reason; I just try to go with it.)

There were a couple of constant messages that God has been whispering and shouting at me lately (depending on my attitude). I found a sign at Kirkland's in Turlock.( If you haven't been there, you must go there. The smelly packets of amazing scents make the visit totally worth it all by themselves! My house smells so incredibly calm and peaceful and comfortable and a whole bunch of things that aren't actually scents but make you feel like they should be. Trust me: visit Kirkland's.)
Getting back to the sign...
The sign currently hangs above my desk and says this:

LIVE BY GRACE
NOT BY PERFECTION

I should probably get that tattooed on the back of my hand where I will read it every day!
Why is it so difficult to get this through our minds?! Unless I'm the only one, in which case: Why is it so difficult to get this through my mind?! 

Maybe I learned this all wrong when I was a kid in church, but weren't we taught that it is by grace we have been saved, through faith and this is NOT OF OURSELVES, it is a gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.  

So here are the two things that bounce around in my head as I read that sign.

1. Self, (yes, conversing with my Self right here) stop trying to hold yourself to an impossible standard. Just know that you are going to fail and be okay with it. It is through those failures that we learn and grow. (Seriously, y'all: I just told my kids this a couple days ago. Practice what you preach, much, Self?)

2. Have eyes of grace. Okay,so here's what I mean: so if you picture your toddler trying to walk, but falling down, or your kiddo learning to ride their bike but they are super wobbly, or your teen is learning to cook or bake and the result is less than amazing, what do you do? Disown them? Tell them to find someone else to teach them how to ride a bike or make cookies? Scorn your toddler and tell them they will never learn to walk?
No - that's dumb.
We have the eyes of grace which looks at them with understanding and kindness and takes the time to teach them and encourage them.

So why don't we do the same with other people in this world? We place these expectations of perfection on others and when they don't reach those standards, we stop investing in them or scorn them or gossip about them... (Did that one hit home?)

I believe (and this is in part because I have this big log in my eye, compared to the little speck in yours) that we should constantly be wearing grace-colored lenses when we look at those around us.  The ones that soften the rough situations and give us the gentle words to say and remind us that we, too, should be looked at through the grace-colored lenses.

But maybe if you have a hard time doing that for everyone else, do you think you could at least put them on when you  look at me?!

KC