Morning Encouragement

Ezekiel 36: 25 - 27
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

Ezekiel 36: 34-36
The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass through it. They will say, “This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden; the cities that were lying in ruins, desolate and destroyed, are now fortified and inhabited.^".  Then the nations around you that remain will know that I the Lord have rebuilt what was destroyed and have replanted what was desolate. I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it.’


Yesterday, I felt like a huge failure of a mother.  After meltdown number 5 for the day, I honestly threw in the towel and wanted to bury my head in the sand.  It seemed I could do nothing right, our home was like Gehenna - filled with weeping and gnashing of teeth!    So, this morning, as I awoke on the heels of the drama, I needed encouragement.  (Regard me).  And God sent to me this passage in Ezekiel.  Trying to mother in my own strength, trying to love my children through their meltdowns, their drama, their selfishness - is like trying to squeeze water from a stone.  My human heart is a heart of stone.  But the Lord has promised me a new heart.  A new heart and a new spirit.  And after I receive my new heart and my new spirit (kind of like the cowardly lion and the tin man all wrapped up in one) - I will be MOVED to follow the Lord's decrees.  I can love my kids through their imperfections and through my own imperfections.  I can be moved to supernatural love by the Lord.  That alone was encouraging - I don't have to do this on my own.  The Lord has given me strengths and weaknesses and certainly I draw on the strengths and fall back to the weaknesses in any endeavor that I make but if I yield to the Lord, accept His gifts, I will be moved to follow Him.  And what better parent could there be than one who follows the Lord?  Isn't He Himself the ultimate example of sacrificial love that every parent strives to be?  

Then I continued to read down and was even more encouraged.  Almost five years have passed since I became a mother for the first time.  In those five years, I have made numerous mistakes.  Last night, it felt like all my attempts at parenting - everything I have been working for in the last five years was just nothing.  It felt worthless.  I felt like my own feeble attempts had been just that:  feeble.  And futile.  But I loved reading verses 34 and 35 - The desolate land will be cultivated.  This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden.  - that was even more encouraging than the new heart!  What I have mucked up - what I have failed desperately to do, the mistakes that I have made - the Lord will redeem them.  He can make beauty from ashes.   

Finally, I read that last part.  And I remembered - It is not about me.  My children are not a reflection of who I am in the Lord.  God will not look at my children as my final project, my portfolio of a life well lived, and if they are not drug addicts, I pass - if they are sweet and Godly than I get an A+.  God has given me these children to be a blessing to me and to teach me about my own sin.  They cause me to draw closer to Him.  But the way that they turn out - whether or not they love God and serve others - it is up to Him.  None of us are Christ lovers because our parents were stupendous.  Some of us had stupendous parents to look toward and as an example of wonderful faith, but each of us - EACH of us - is a Christ lover because the Lord Himself relentlessly pursued us, because the Holy Spirit convicted us and worked in our stone hearts, planting a seed of God's love.  I am accountable to God for loving and parenting my children the best that I can, drawing on His strength and spirit.  (They are only some of the people in this world that I am accountable to the Lord for loving through His heart.)  I can teach them about God, I can require certain things from them when they are here in my household, I can set boundaries about what I will and won't do - but my parenting does not guarantee any results - the Lord is the one who takes our desolate, barren, sin-filled souls and turns us into the garden of Eden.  He does this for His own glory - to reveal Himself to a broken world, including me and my children.  

What beautiful encouragement from the Lord Himself this morning.  Thank you so very much, God, for giving me just exactly what I needed to hear  today in my failure and discouragement.