What’s Wrong With Me?!

As much as I love when readers reach out to tell me how much something I wrote meant to them and as flattering as it may be when people act like I’m some stellar stepmom who has it all figured out, there’s always a part of me that feels a little uncomfortable and I am compelled to respond with something like, “Thank you BUT please know that I absolutely do NOT have it all together.”

Y’all, the truth is I’m just a big hypocrite.

There. The secret’s out. Not that any of you who actually know me haven’t already figured this out. The thing is, just because I have struggled with something and  by His grace receive some profound revelation from God about it today, doesn’t mean the struggle is going to be any less real tomorrow. In fact, most of the time, after God teaches me something and then I go on to share it with my fellow stepmoms, it’s like I immediately start getting tested even harder in that exact area and screw it up even bigger than I was screwing it up before I got on my knees and begged God for truth and guidance. Sometimes, I just really want to freak out and scream “What’s wrong with me?!” (Okay, a lot of times I actually do).

Why is it that no matter how hard I try, I can’t ever seem to get this stepmom thing right? Or this blended family thing. Heck, why is that I can’t ever get anything in this life right? And there I find myself again, full of shame and defeat, prying my Bible open in desperation only to be surprisingly refreshed by the fact that I am actually in pretty good company. It seems everyone in the Bible that God did big things through was a screw up in their own special way. And maybe, just maybe, that was the reason God was able to use them. Some of us are just too weak to pretend like we don’t wake up every morning, keenly aware of the fact that we are incapable of even making it through the next hour without Him. 

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  1 Corinthians 12:9-11

You know, the Bible may have been written thousands of years ago, but it has never for a moment stopped being relevant and  relatable. In Romans 7, Paul says something so raw, so vulnerable,  so…human. 

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

I love how transparent he is here. I mean, is he right or is he right? And this is the guy God picked to bring the gospel of Grace to the Gentiles! Looks like we have something in common here, Paul and I. You know, 9 out of 10 times I KNOW what the right thing to do is and honestly have every intention of doing it, but then out pops the wrong thing. Again. I mean I can seriously tell myself okay, I am going to do THIS when THAT happens, knowing THAT thing is going to happen in the next 3 minutes and then boom! Just like that. I do the exact opposite of what I wanted to do. Like Paul said, I feel like I am just completely incapable of carrying out the good my heart longs to do. And ok yeah, I do get it right sometimes. But most of the time, I don’t. Just been real here.

I guess our human reality is, we will never really arrive. At least not on this side of heaven. Until then we have to just keep surrendering to this process of sanctification here on earth because after all, that is His will for us here and He never said it would be easy. Or something you will want to brag about on Facebook. 

People, when you read about something I did good or right, please know that I did it wrong 1000 times before that one “right” time and have done it wrong 1000 times since. And you know what? I’m okay with that. All I can do is hold onto His grace and mercy for dear life and keep doing what I feel God is calling me to do. The enemy would love nothing more than for us to think we can’t be used by God just because we aren’t perfect. Our Maker knows we aren’t perfect. That’s why He sent His son to die for us. All He asks is that we keep pressing into Him for the strength to get back up again and keep trying.