The Beauty of Messing Up.

I'm not really sold on the title of this posting.

 It sounds a little too daily devosh to me. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm thankful for those Proverbs 31 Ministry daily emails let me tell you as those are sometimes the only "in the Word" I get to enjoy.

Anyone else struggle with perfectionism? Am I right ladies??

Well, good let's be friends then but you can't judge me when I bring up cheese within the first 5 minutes of meeting you in person.

Last week I made a promise to bring Leelah lunch and eat with her. And then I forgot about it and my dear, dear friend texted me and it reminded me.

I immediately was overcome with grief and started bawling. I knew how excited my daughter was when I sprung the idea on her that morning and I had failed. I had gone to Hobby Lobby. HOBBY LOBBY. In my defense, I had done 3 other errands prior- and that was part of the problem. Poor time management.

A while back I went to hear a speaker speak on Perfectionism and it pretty much leveled my heart with truth in my life. Completely secular, her words were more spirit-filled to me then all get out.

You see I didn't realize I was such a perfectionist until I heard all the indicators she spoke of. I didn't think I was one because I mess up so frequently and I'm just one of those people that never seem to have it together and just make self-deprecating jokes to win friends in spite of the goofs and gaffs.

But it all makes sense. The intense guilt and shame brought on by simple daily mistakes. The desire to have the unattainable- like a "container store closet" or well laid out plans for fill-in-the-blank 2 weeks out or my hair brushed daily. The need to accomplish so stinkin' much all the time. Yuck.

The speaker spoke on the glory of saying, "Oh well." Just saying those 2 words when you mess up and then the world is right again. So I latched on to that- by golly I'm gonna be perfect at messing up now!- and have employed the O.W. method with much success.

It's been great.

Until LunchGeddon 2013.

Oh my.

If you saw a crying beast of a mom driving down 1463, that was me.

So I tried and tried to say Oh Well. I did. And more tears came. So I prayed for God to take the horror away and heal Leelah all at once. I prayed for His forgiveness. I know some of y'all are beginning to think, "Whoa, this chick has 'sues." And I do.

God broke it down for me to go to her and apologize - hence the 1463 part. So I got there and begged the office staff that does not know me at all to please, please let me see my daughter. It was weird.

They considered taking her out and having me check her back in unexcused, until I stared at them with a face that looked like this: 



And they obliged.

And then Lbug came out trying to look sad, but immediately smiling at me and hugged and hugged me. Boy you know I wanted to re-cry right there. But I held it in so as not to traumatize her and the office staff and I went through the whole sphiel:

Mommy really messed up and forgot and I'm SO SORRY. I understand if you were mad and sad at mommy. I'd like to ask for your forgiveness please. You are so important to mommy! I'd like to take you on a date tonight to your fave place and then have a fun time at the soda pop store. 

She just kept hugging me and was the sweetest. I got to receive Jesus's grace from my child. And I will never forget her forgiveness.

Had I been perfect and not messed up- I would not have gotten to really receive and grasp her grace that day. And she got to bestow grace, which is always a good thing for a child or anyone to practice.

I had lunch with her this week and went to every person that comforted her and told them thank you personally. You should have seen the little smiles on their faces. Of course they probably think Leelah's mom is super weird and there might be a stranger danger email about me, but I just had to give thanks.

Being a perfectionist does not allow for any grace. Without grace, how am I gonna experience Jesus and show grace to others? It just won't work for me anymore. I have to let that go. I blame Martha and the whole state of Utah and it's crafters for my struggle! JK.

The thing is my daughter, my husband and me- we are all perfectionists.

So we are all having to incorporate our "Oh wells" daily.

I'm a work in progress on this and it's starting to be comical to me to see all the ways God is having me break free from this bondage of having to be ______________.

I'm interested in reading this: Perfectionism: What's Bad About Being Too Good by Miriam Adderholdt.


We got a little one on the way and I just know I will forget more promises and receive more grace.

Maybe I'll start thanking God right in the middle of a mess up for the lesson He's teaching me.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 2 Cor. 12:9

Faith of a First Grader

On the way to dropping me off at an event I had to photograph, Leelah tells John and I that one of her classmates said to her:
"I know you are a Christian."
Leelah agreed.
This little boy comes from a family that is Jewish. Which if you truly know a Christian, we adore Jewish people. We pray for them. We support them. It hurts our hearts that they are so very persecuted. And it hurts our hearts that they do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

So the conversation continues between Leelah and her friend.
He says, "We do not believe in Jesus because we are Jewish."
Leelah, "I know that." We had lightly touched on this at our home, still telling her all the while- show him LOVE. Which we pray she is doing.

He goes on to say, "Jesus is a liar. He tells lies. He is not the Son of God."
Whoa.
Re-read the subject: First Grade.
 Look, I thought that Leelah's diagramming sentences and learning prepositional phrases was beyond first grade, let alone theology debates!

"That's not true." Leelah says, "Jesus is the King of the Jews and the Son of God." 

I asked her how it ended and John said something to the effect of, "How every convo a kid has they see a bird and run off or something."

Leelah kind of dropped it, but John and I explained that Jesus is a Jew and that He is the Son of God. They do not believe what we believe, Jewish people believe in a different book called the Torah.

If you are Jewish and are reading this, I love you. Seriously. Everything about you pulls at my heart. Please know I'm not sending my child to school to convert everyone she sees. My child is starting to recess preach, and I just pray that she speaks the truth in love. We don't hate anybody. She is bold and honestly, it scares me sometimes. I'm all like I LOVE PIZZA and she's all telling kids about Christ and, "It's okay if you don't believe, I still love you anyway!"

We further explained that Jewish people wanted God's Son to be a KING. Or as Cee-Lo would say, "A KANG!!!" With all the riches and glory and whatever else. I'm sure I'm insulting folks now.

But Jesus came in on a donkey. He is humility. His riches are far more than that of wealth we could conjure here on earth. He fulfilled all the prophecies.

 We explained to her that people are not going to believe in the Bible, but we stand on it ALWAYS AS TRUTH. Always.

And that story right there is just one of the reasons I go to Moms in Prayer International, formerly Moms in Touch each week!!!

My Ramblings on Grace

Grace is something the Lord is gently teaching me, and sometimes I get through complete and utter failure. Which makes it all the more needed and sweet I suppose. Here are some precious moments when I messed up and got the opposite of what I deserved:

I went to daycare. Let's just call it what it was. They didn't have fancy "childhood development NAECAEEHACCDEC" names for it back then. It was straight up daycare. And I remember crying like a howler monkey banshee crossbreed every time I got dropped off. It was hard for me to make friends. I didn't know what to do with myself. This didn't get any better until about 4 years ago (Praise Jesus).

I still remember my very first friend: Tick. Tick was the first person that showed me grace. She was at the daycare too. I was 3-4ish. My dad was battling cancer round one and like I said, it was not easy to make pals. I could blame it on being an only child, but I really think it was just the way I'm bent: quirky. So tough times required me to grow up, ASAP.

Tick liked me without words. I don't think she spoke English very well. It didn't matter. She would play with me and smile. We liked blocks. The other kids were just so uggghhh!!! Running around and terrorizing me and others. One day I got in a squirmish and I faintly remember hitting someone with something in defense or straight up intolerance. Then I felt the immense guilt surge. Oh this feeling of guilt would be one that permeated every moment of my life for the next 27 years until I would start to understand the keyword mentioned above: GRACE. Guilt was the tool the enemy used on my soul day in and day out.

Anyways, back to my bad decision of the smashing a kid. So I smashed the kid and felt sick-awful about it. I mean I didn't bludgeon him or her, but I reacted in anger. Then the teacher told me to go to the principal. I guess they had principals back then in daycare. So I sobbed down the hall to her office. I think it took me 10 minutes to walk 300 ft. I got there and saw a really nice faced older lady. I mean her face glowed like a glow worm. She smiled at me. SMILED. Then she said, "Gillian, do you need a hug?" (I'm tryping- cry-typing as I write). And she proceeded to show me a second, engrained dose of GRACE. I ate that hug up and never, ever forgot it obviously.

I have a besty that I met at Walgreens in middle school. She was yelling for her dad on one aisle and I was on another. 'PAPA!' 'PAPA!' I thought it was funny she was calling him that and I don't remember why, but I jumped around the corner and yelled, 'BABUSHKA!!!' to her. We were 2 peas from then on. I love her and her family. I remember always being welcome at her house. Always seeing a family that loved with ease. Then one day when we were grown up, I did something stupid. Well, I was a fool to her many times before that. I acted on some bad advice, didn't matter because I was the one that acted on it from a trusted family member. I reacted. A thing one tends to do when they aren't walking with Jesus. Do you know what? This super friend showed me some more of that perfect word, GRACE. She wiped the slate clean when she could have held that grudge. I love you Babushka and thank you for the GRACE.

We love to host sweet middle-school age kids from China through our church home, Second Baptist- West. We were hosting two sweet girls and showed them the glory of Hobby Lobby. One of them accidentally broke a crystal cross immediately after she paid for it. She was shaken and about in tears when the sweet cashier told her to get another one. Rose did and I tried to pay for it- not letting Rose attempt to. The cashier told her to just take it without payment. That my friends is our word, GRACE. Beautiful, right?

Only because I've experienced the ultimate favor of GRACE with Jesus and these above do I now know how to apply it to others. Thank you God for this!

Will you please do yourself and others a favor and show some GRACE today to someone? It could be that dude at McD's that's sour faced and slow moving or that crazy mom with hot flashes in the Ross check out line, but please try it out! Warning: it's addicting.