Beauty From Chaos

I read a great post this morning about striving to be a perfect mom and it really hit home. Not too long ago that was me losing control, screaming, longing to just be alone for a few days. no kids. I couldn’t handle them, they were too much. They didn’t listen, in fact they did the opposite of what I said. Lexi screamed at me, threw temper tantrums if she didn’t get her way. My life was miserable because I couldn’t make my kids obey. we went on vacation and I was embarrassed at my children’s behavior, so embarrassed I cried when I left my friend’s house because I felt like I had completely failed as a mom.

It wasn’t until two weeks ago that it honestly hit me… I CAN’T DO IT. That’s what God wanted me to realize. Just like my friend Beth says in her post, we can’t be a perfect mother by our own power, even if we somehow could achieve this, how would it glorify Him?

Although I didn’t stop reading my Bible I wasn’t applying anything. Like someone wanting to lose weight can read all the success stories they want but until they diet and exercise nothing is going to change! As Christians we do the same thing, we read a chapter of our Bible a day and walk away thinking that we’re going to become great Christians, perfect parents, spouses and friends all because we read a verse. It’s not going to happen that way. You have to actually choose to starve the flesh and feed the spirit, you have to choose to put on the armor of Christ, you have to choose to show the fruit of the spirit not the vices of the world. I was choosing the opposite of what I was reading.

What will you choose today? Today is a lot to think about, so maybe we should break it down a bit. What will you choose when your child disobeys?  What will you choose when the kids are fighting? What will it be, the fruit of the spirit or the fruit of the flesh?