Accept Grace

I was blessed right down to my toes yesterday at the wonderful comments that were made as a result of my Proverbs 31 devotion on bring order and beauty to our workplace. Thank you for taking the time to write a note of encouragement to me, and to the other readers of this blog.

I'm still working my way through them because life got interuppted again yesterday with a phone call from my niece at 9 a.m. My neice and her husband own an MMA training center, (and we are co-owners) called The Lab. It seems that everyone had gone to an out-of-town fight and she needed to cover the front desk all day. Her call was to see if one of my teenage boys could kid-sit her twin 7-year-olds after school. She then mentioned that one of her sons was actually with her due to a low fever. I immediately pictured my sweet great-nephew laying on a blanket the floor and offered to drive over right then and pick him up to spend the day with me. The offer was accepted, and off I went.

As I read through many of the blog posts between working and caring for my nephew, I realized a very common theme: overwhelmed and don't know where to start.

I actually will be addressing some ways to take baby steps and get started, but I wanted to share my thoughts on why even the most organized person can get overwhelmed. Here's my deep and insightful thought: life changes.

That's it. Life is always changing. People change, circumstances change, finances change, jobs change, weather changes, health changes and on and on. My day on Tuesday changed because of a phone call and the needs of people I love.

Speaking of changing, I used to get so frustrated with myself about child disciplining techniques (this ties in with my point so hang with me). I would start some type of reward system to change their behavior and it would work for a few months, and then stop being effective. Was it my fault? Was I inconsistent? Was it a bad plan to begin with? I finally realized it was because my kids had changed in two months, they'd grown and matured. What worked two months ago, doesn't work now.

That's the same with organization techniques. You might have been able to keep up with your paper overload a few years ago, but things have changed. You might not have the same energy or sleep levels. Maybe you have kids in school. Or you are working more.

Here's my love-note to you today: Accept God's grace and have grace on yourself.

We all get into situations where we can't keep up, where we are overwhelmed, where we are distracted. Those times can last days, weeks, months or even years. Accept God's grace and give yourself grace. Life changes.

So, we are in this together. We'll take baby steps together. We'll accept that life has changed and we'll discover new techniques to adapt. And most importantly, we'll give each other love and grace.

In His Love,

Glynnis