But Then Grace

If brokenness is vital to an intentional mom, then grace is her lifeline. Because grace is the beautiful mystery that brings rescue and redemption to the broken pieces and the shattered places. Grace steps into the middle of your brokenness, my brokenness, and it restores the failures, the heartbreak, the misgivings, and the mistakes.

Grace for an intentional mom is the one element upon which all others hinge. It is the one gift given in abundant measure that we must pass on to our children. But in order to pass it on, we must first receive it. Because we can’t pour out grace on our children if we haven’t first tasted of it.

So what is grace? Grace … sweet grace is our access to the throne of God, and his name is Jesus.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus was seized from the Garden of Gethsemane, given an unfair trial, mocked, beaten, and nailed to a cross between two thieves. On Friday he gave up his spirit. The earth shook, the curtain ripped, and the promise of rescue and redemption hung nailed to a Roman cross. On day three, women walked to the tomb with spices in hand. They had heavy hearts and a difficult task. Sadness had eclipsed worship; despair had conquered hope; the world was a mess of broken people.

But then grace …   

An earthquake shook the ground and an angel appeared with a message so ripe with the promise of redemption that it’s nearly unbelievable: “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.” (Matthew 28:6 NIV) And suddenly these women who were on their way to perform a grave task found their work intercepted by unfathomable grace. As they rushed back to tell the other disciples, they met the resurrected Christ, fell to their feet and worshiped him. Because that’s what an encounter with the resurrected Jesus does. It replaces work with worship. There’s no more doing, no more being, no more striving, there is simply fall-on-your-face worship.

Did you hear that, friend? Two thousand years ago, grace replaced the striving, the try-hard, the difficult, and the gritty with the beautiful mystery of hope and redemption. Death couldn’t keep him, and the grave couldn’t hold him. He has risen, He lives, and there is nothing we must do to add to the finality of that sacrifice. We simply receive the gift of grace, and we worship out of a heart that overflows with gratitude. For broken mamas and broken children, the cross gives us everything and asks nothing in return. We must simply receive it.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

This grace is the banner of the intentional mom. It steps into the middle of her broken places and her messy spaces and brings the hope of redemption. Grace says, “You can’t, but Jesus can.” So we lean into grace, and we learn to let go. We learn to release our own imperfections, our failures, our mistakes. We press into grace … we learn to let it cover us, and then we let it cover our children. We learn to extend grace to their little messes and their big mistakes. We let grace be the banner over our family, because we realize there is no better way to mother.

You and I, we’re just broken mothers parenting broken children. But intentional mothers understand the beautiful truth of grace, and that changes everything!

This is Day 6 in 31 Days of Intentional Mothering. To start reading from Day 1, click here.

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