After a day wallowing in self-pity and discouragement and spreading an unpleasant attitude all throughout my house (attitude is contagious, you know), God graciously and mercifully pricks my heart and shows me the error of my ways.

My seven year old and I had been reading a Proverbs a day that month and His prayer that very night just happened to be founded on Proverbs 14:1.

“…and God help us to be wise. Like the woman in…what was it? Chapter fourteen? The wise woman builds her house but a foolish one tears it down with hear hands. Yes. Help us, God, to be like the wise woman and not like the one who tore her house down with her hands. Amen” (Logan, 7).

His grace, found in words breathed out by my youngest child, covers and urges me to run back to my Savior.

I am undone and convicted. God scoops up and washes clean, makes new, remembers not.

Isn’t that grace? Not that we would take it and continue as we are but that we would be so overwhelmed with His goodness and mercy even in our sin that we run back to Him?

A thousand times I fail and still His arms reach wide and His embrace is gentle. Always loving. Always covering.

When I make a mess of things, when I spew words of anger and say things I regret, when I want to close my eyes and Just. Start. Over. ~ God is always enough and His grace always covers.

In Chapter 11 of our ACH study, Renee Swope talks about the woman she wants to be.  I, too, want to be a woman with a confident heart, a display of God’s splendor. I want my life to be transformed so that Jesus is revealed…even in my attitude…even in my home.

I can be that woman. You can be that woman.

When we live in the power of God’s promises and in a place of surrender, our life bows down to His will, His plans, His purposes and He raises us up as a vessel for His glory on earth (and in our marriage and in our parenting).

“You are a chosen [woman], a royal [priest], a holy [daughter], God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of the darkness into His wonderful light” (1 Pet. 2:9). 

Prayer: God, we come to you messy and imperfect and broken. We surrender to you and we choose to live in the power of Your promises. Thank you for loving us even when we are unlovely. Your Word assures us that Your love never fails, never ends, never leaves. It also promises that Your grace is enough and Your strength and power are made perfect and shown most effective in our weakness. Take what we have and use it for Your glory alone. Transform us and make us more like Jesus that we might be a display of Your splendor on earth. In Jesus name, Amen. (Ps. 136, Ps. 52:8, 1 John 3:1, 2 Cor. 12:9,  Col. 1:27, Is. 62:3)