GRACE

Jared and I have been feeling quite sleep deprived lately...It feels like we have a newborn again. Over the past few weeks, the girls have been taking turns being sick, Chloe is teething, and Lucy is in a twin bed now which means she gets out of bed through the night as she pleases. Our new norm is to get up in the night at least once every night and it's starting to wear us thin. A lot of nights we get up 4 or 5 times with the girls and this recent time change hasn't helped! Our earliest riser is now getting up at 5:00! We have been consuming large amounts of coffee and taking big doses of patience and grace but it's not that easy. I don''t know about you but I need my coffee before I can truly function. When I'm up so early in the morning with Lucy after I hardly slept the night before, there is very little patience or grace, folks. Just being honest.

Chloe, my 14 month old is getting her 1 year molars in and therefore has spent the majority of the past few days screaming. Just walking around the house, aimlessly, screaming. It. Has. Been. a delight. :P

To get to the point; no, I'm not trying to vent online about how horrible my kids are, blah, blah, blah...
I want to share my outlook on getting through the tough times. We've all heard the phrase, "This too shall pass" and in my little world, that phrase offers me so much hope because it's true! Every tough phase that I've gone through in life has indeed either "passed" or God taught me how to live through it. For example; when each of our girls were newborns, we felt like we would never feel normal again! We were SO sleep deprived and I was on an emotional roller coaster with a touch of the baby blues. Eventually, our babies did learn how to sleep through the night though and we felt normal again, more rested, and ready to go through the next phases of parenthood. Right now I know, or at least I hope that our girls wont be getting up in the night forever. In the middle of the night and early in the morning, it's hard to have grace and to be patient and even loving but I just have to remember that wether they're sick, had a bad dream, teething, or just plain being ornery and not staying in their bed, I am called by God to treat them in the way that God treats us, His children.

I was up at around 5:30 this morning after a night of on and off sleeping and it would have been so easy to use my sleepiness as an excuse to be grouchy and let my kids sit in front of the tv all day but the show must go on. I've heard it said before that you have to be the person that you want your children to become. They are always watching us and mimicking our actions, good and bad. (scary!)

Even though I'm so tired and weary in this phase, I know that it too shall pass so until it does, I am going to make the choice to be a good mom. I will take my extra dose of patience in the morning. I will look to God's word for encouragement and strength. I will try my hardest to hold my tongue when I want to lash out because that only results in fear or resentment. I will be loving, caring, understanding, and fair. Most of all, I want my actions to reflect God's love. I want my children to see my love for Christ, not my anger and frustration toward them.

I know I will make mistakes. I've already made plenty, but while my children are still so little and impressionable, I want to give it my all to mold them into the women that Christ longs for them to be and to remember to apologize to them when I do mess up so that they know the difference between right and wrong. There are so many memories to be made in these years and I want those memories to be good ones.

I recommend reading, "Grace Based Parenting" by Dr. Tim Kimmel if you haven't already. I'm currently reading it and it was definitely the inspiration for this post. Here's a quote from the book to think about: "You've been handed a piece of history in advance--a gracious gift you send to a time you will not see.