Saturday, April 23, 2011

Mae Mae and Pop, and a quick little "rant" at the end:)

We "scooted" over to Guntersville today for a quick picnic lunch with Mae Mae and Pop.  It was perfect weather for an afternoon spent outside with a view of beautiful Lake Guntersville!!  John was able to toddle around, and Ada loved climbing and sliding and swinging the afternoon away.





Ada's attitude and disobedience joined us on our little afternoon out.  I am about to pull my hair out.  I spent some time talking to my mom about it tonight, trying to get a more experienced--walked the road before me--perspective.  I just feel discouraged by her behavior.  It's never an encouraging thing as a mom when your child is blatantly disobedient and disrespectful and argumentative and need I keep listing?  

A nice reminder of my own sinful nature and the very reason why Christ hung on the cross, right?  I was saying to Ada tonight, as we read in her Jesus Storybook Bible, it is your disobedience and bad attitude and my disobedience and bad attitude that made the cross necessary (I doubt I used the word necessary in the conversation, but you know what I mean...)  I don't know if she got it.  She asked lots and lots of questions, including--pointing to a picture of the three crosses--"is this on the moon?"  No, Ada, Jesus didn't die on a cross on the moon(?!!!)  I just pray that somehow in her three year old heart she can understand that all she has to do is ask Jesus to give her a new clean heart and he will.  HE WILL!!!  

I am so thankful that when God looks at me he sees Christ.  What relief.  What absolute relief that I don't even have to fear death itself.  God conquered that.  He conquered that!!!  All we have to do is understand that there is no good in us.  We are guilty at our very core.  It is who we are by nature.  But God, he sent his very own son...His SON!!! to hang on that cross, being punished in our place, so that we can get to God.  So that we can know Him.  He is so Holy, so Perfect and without stain or blemish, that we can't, apart from Christ, approach Him.  But Christ, because of the Cross, can make us clean, and then, and only then, can we know God.  It's not something we did.  It's Christ, all Christ!!!!!  


Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted
But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned--every one--to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:4-6.


3 comments:

Jessica said...

Praise the Lord.

Alleria's Mom said...

You don't know me but I found your blog through another friend's blog. I just wanted to tell you how much encouragement I have gotten from reading your blog. My 3 year old daughter is a handful. There are so many times when I am so exhausted from dealing with her that I can't even function. Good days are really good. Bad days are really terrible and thankfully do not occur as often as they did. I am so glad to know I am not the only Mom out there who goes through this! Thanks for your posts!!

Mary said...

I know exactly what you mean about that feeling of relief. I feel it too. It is so strange that even in my relief for His taking the punishment for me I am convicted of my selfishness, how can we (anyone) doubt the nature of our hearts and need for him? We are guilty even in our acceptance of His atonement, in a way. Boggles the mind! The endlessness of our depravity, and the completeness of His justification.