Last night, I blew it… big time. After chewing out one of my teenagers (in front of the whole family!) for something he did to his brother, I fumed silently. Then, I pulled him aside in an attempt to calmly reiterate my point, but instead I found myself, in an escalating voice, chewing him out some more. As the words were spewing out of my mouth, I was simultaneously engaging in an inner battle.
Dang it! I know this isn’t doing any good, but for some reason I can’t seem to stop talking!
He just looked at me and didn’t say much. Sigh. Then, I went upstairs, brushed my teeth, and cried in my closet. After I prayed and calmed down a bit, I realized that I was the one who was out of control, which felt pretty awful. Don’t get me wrong… it’s not like this was my first episode of losing it with my kids. It just felt extra painful, for some reason.
Later, I pulled him aside again and apologized for the way I had behaved. I confessed that my emotional response to the situation was way out of whack. I asked him to forgive me, and he did.
So, why share all this? Because I want to be real, and I want Jesus to be real through me.
Yesterday morning, I woke up thinking about my blog post about Jesus shining through me because I am not perfect. I was thinking, what does that mean practically? What does it look like for Jesus to shine through my glaring cracks? Well, last night, my cracks looked like me yelling at my kid. It hurt… my humanity… like stretching skin. And what did it look like for Jesus to shine through that? Confessing my sin against my kiddo, asking for forgiveness, and believing that Jesus will minister to my son.
This morning I read a scripture that I just love:
2 Corinthians 3:4-6 “Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
God has made me competent to be a minister of the new covenant, to be a MINISTER of GRACE. Not because of my abilities, but because of the work Jesus did on the cross. Oh, Lord, help me be a minister of Your grace to my children…
And sometimes, that looks like asking for forgiveness when I blow it.
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