By Carie Moore
This is my baby. He is also known as Crabby Sassy Pants. Grace for short. He is a constant reminder of how I need to practice giving grace to others, like himself, when sometimes I don’t feel like it. It’s also a handy reminder to pray at meal time when I say, “Grace, for the 10th time, SIT DOWN and eat!”
Moms are examples to our families, our friends, our co-workers, our volunteer organizations, and other moms. We succeed and struggle at many things and we all want to be better people in general, at everything we do and say. I slip up but not as much as I did even 5 years ago.
As moms, we tend to look at what’s behind us as a bad thing and bring it to the future. We get weighed down with the “should have’s” and “why didn’t I’s.”
Look forward momma! Look at your past and say, “Hey, I am still not who I want to be, but I’m not who I was.” Look at things that are happening today and realize you are not handling them the way you would have a year ago. You are growing, every day, just like your kids.
They see you. Yes, sometimes that’s scary! But they see you. They see you look at the nutrition labels at the grocery store. They see your passion for agriculture or the work you do. They see you praying when you think they’re in bed and they got up for a glass of water. They see you wrapping up supper on a plate for dad when he gets home late. They see how you treat other people, and they see you surviving. They see it and will do it to.
There will always be people and things reminding you of your past. Sometimes in a small town, that’s hard to shake. That doesn’t mean you give up. There is a plan for your life, and things happen because of that plan. You may not understand or like it. It may be difficult. Rejections are especially hard to take sometimes, but there is more. There is more to you and who you will become. Strength comes from storms. What you can control is your reaction and your response to it. That’s what your children see, remember, and learn from.
Wisdom. Persistence. Faith. Grace. Always have grace. You never know when you might need it shown to you. We all stumble, we all fall, but giving and getting grace shows how truly amazing moms really can be.