Room for Grace : Motivational Monday

In a picture perfect world; Mondays would be graceful. I’d wake up the way Disney princesses do, stretch my arms out and greet the morning sun. The kids would be bright and cheery and we would leave the house, neat and tidy, and ready to start the day.

Now you can toss that image straight out of your head because in a very honest world, Monday’s  in our house are, well. Hectic.
I wake up after the third — okay maybe fourth — time of hitting the snooze button; and now, we’re late. I rush across the house, and grab our toddler from his bed, while flipping the light on in our oldest son’s room. “Hey! We’re late! Get up!” Only to be greeted with “I DON’T WANT TO GET UP.” (In a very loving tone, of course.) I get dressed, corral my kiddos and scoot them both out the door. We make it to school and breeze through car-rider line, because we are late, and no ones there to hold up the line. After dropping our oldest off, I head back across town with my toddler in tow singing Little Einsteins, and wheels on the bus five of six times before we get to daycare. The infamous struggle ensues – you know the one – you walk in to drop your kid off and he instantly has a kung-fu death grip on your leg and it takes the jaws of life to pry him off? Yeah, that’s the one.

Not all mornings are like this – but usually Monday’s. For a long while, I would beat myself up over my morning routine. I would think to myself “Does everyone do this with their kids? No, It’s just me.” In my heart, I know that’s not true. I know EVERYONE has a rough morning from time to time. But in my frustration, I wanted to convince myself, it was just me.

Do you ever have days like that? Days where you set the bar high with expectations? “I’ll get up early today.” “I’ll check everything off my list today!” “I’ll workout today!”
Only to fall way to short of our overly high set bar. When we don’t finish our checklists, or do what we so hoped we’d do; we feel – defeated. We feel discouraged and beat ourselves up. We think we must be alone in our struggle.

The problem is we are lead to believe things have to be perfect. Friend, I don’t know what your morning is like today. Maybe it’s awesome! Maybe it’s great! Or maybe you have been having a morning like mine – where it just seems you got off on the wrong foot, so now you face the day feel frustrated. We so often forget, that we are a work in progress, and our lives wont be perfect until we get to heaven. God knows we aren’t perfect, and he gives us grace upon grace. He is the ultimate giver of grace! (John 1:16) So,  why can’t we seem to give ourselves any?

I am learning to press into these words: 
Let me tell you something, dear friend. We are not bound by perfection in this life. You are not defined by your failures or mistakes –  No matter how big or how small. It doesn’t matter if your Monday’s look like a storybook princesses, or if they look the something out of the twilight zone.  Leave yourself room for grace.

My morning started in a slump. I didn’t wake up on time. I might not check everything off my to-do list. I might not exercise for the full 30 minutes today – maybe not at all. But, today I am giving myself grace. Because it’s okay to not have it all together all-the-time. God doesn’t expect me to be perfect, He just expects me to be willing.