When the heart is humble, oh, what the hands can do!

Brokenness + Love = Character. I am so thankful for being broken. There is character built in understanding pain. I get it. I get why someone would give up on things that matter. I get it why someone would mark themselves unredeemable. There is a difference between selfish vanity and broken pain. Brokenness can be redeemed. In words like "I get it" there can come healing. I am so thankful for being broken, it will be for His glory in the end, and that is everything.
It is like my roughed-up home. We are grateful that this house is a little worn because it is more useful. Things too shiny are left untouched, worried that they will be marked up. But broken things are used without fear. Worn in things are known to be sturdy and comfortable. Lord, let me be worn-in and comfortable, and let me become old and beautiful. 

What about the children?

I feel a bit of a sifting. Sifting is weighty business. I feel the adding on and building of new dreams. Or rather new callings. There is only one problem. I am at my end. God has to take it from here. It will take time, but God is in no rush. His purposes are full and intricate, weaved together. I am about faith, and we are about family, about being purposeful and true. Intentional. But at the end of faith, there is action. I am no longer looking at some foreign romanticized mission. I am looking at a broken, messy, aching need.
So for now there will be prayer. I first need to be a mom who displays loving-kindness foremost. This is hard. I am tired. I am impatient. I was raised harshly. I still feel the harshness searing me at times. It breeds fear. I am afraid of everything. But, I am also the Lord's. I belong to Him first and foremost, and His good love casts out all that fear. He has changed our home front when it comes to teaching our children, and we are in the midst of some good marriage deepening too. He is able to change the way in which I approach discipline. The way I react to disobedience, the kind that wears at you, day in and day out. It will start with something like this.... His loving-kindness leads us to repentance. And I will search Him out until I look back and see where I've come.
And then He will add on purpose to that, to this, change. And, maybe a man will change along side me- before or after. There is no limit to God. A path beyond imagination, as long as we choose "yes."