Things I'm Learning

Okay, enough touring for now. Besides, I don't have any more pictures available to put up at the moment, and Mark has taken the older kids back to the Chicago Children's Museum at Navy Pier for the afternoon while I stay here supervising Marky's nap.

God's been good to me over these few weeks and has been showing me some important things. Here's the most pressing.

My heart over-compensated for the day-in-day-out-nature of being a housewife/mom. When the kids were first born, I struggled with being content in 'just' being a mom. God helped me find that contentment by helping me see the important value of what I do with my family. Good. But I've realized in the last week or two that I didn't simply accept God's calling to motherhood and rest in a relationship with Him. I also made the discontent go away--stuffed it, I think--in part by telling myself God had no 'real' great plans for me, and that I should just get over it. Enter a bit of bitterness toward Him, toward the Scripture, toward prayer, toward my husband--all lurking down in there. Not good.

Good news for me; I have been wrong.

Mark and I have been working through The Gospel Primer, which has been profitable. God's also used the last month's worth of messages at Harvest Bible Chapel here (where we've been going on Sundays) to speak to some of these issues. God's brought me to repentance about the hardness of heart I'd developed over time toward Him. Forgetting the Gospel story; not really believing that God is at work in me as He is in the rest of the world; getting confused about my true identity in Christ and as a purpose as a human being. No wonder I feel like I've been running on near-empty for months or years. I'm thankful for the grace to repent and rebuild, and for the promise that God will continue to work good in me and won't give up (Phil. 1:6).

I appreciate your prayers and know they have been effective; thanks for continuing them.