A Revelation...

This is a time of personal revelation for me...God walking me through my childhood, helping me to heal, showing me what to do, helping distinguish truth from lies...it is often crippling as I do not want to relive the past, sometimes it actually takes my breath away. I have prayed that God would allow me to see those things that need to be faced & fixed... but to also allow me to see how He sees me, small glimpses of myself through His eyes...

I am constantly amazed at the passage of time. Was it not only last week that my babies were running around giggling, that I curled up at the end of each day with a bedtime story??...no, no it was not. In fact, this coming week my littlest man will turn 5 years old--I have been a grandma for 5 years!!  I have treasured every single moment of loving him...but there is no denying that I am getting older, that the end of each day comes quicker than it once did!! I sometimes find it hard to grasp, my babies are all adults...I will never be the mother of young children again...it is a bittersweet pill.

Yesterday while having dinner with a couple of wonderful friends, our kids came up....you moms know how this is. We all have older children, and they have all given us a run for our money at some point.  As we talked, laughed and shared it hit me....I LOVE MY KIDS!! OK, I knew this before yesterday, anyone who knows me knows that I love my kids. What made this moment of realization so amazing was what happened later..

As a mom who spent the last 16 years raising her kids alone, it has become easy to blame myself for all the little things that I did wrong~

why did I yell like that? how could I say something so stupid? why isn't the house clean? did I forget to take something out for dinner? how much damage have I done because of my parenting? was "this" my fault?did I spend enough time with them?

I could go on as I have been plagued with many such thoughts over the years, the way I opted to parent was an odd mix and I often wondered if I made the right choices (and there was no one to blame but me so it weighed on me). 

Then God gave me a glimpse....a sliver of what He thought of me....and it was good! As I reflected on the passage of time He showed me how special it was to have these children love me despite my mistakes, that love covered many failures, that the way I loved them, warts and all was the way He loves me...God, in His loving way gave me a revelation!