ShareNo woman should have to dig through the trash twice in one week. This is what I told myself when I was digging through the trash for the second time yesterday.
The first time was when, as usual, while moving too fast from one thing to another, I forgot to take a gift card out of a shopping bag before that bag went in the trash. That time, my eyes popped open right before sleep and I thought.
Oh. No.
That gift card was found–not just in the kitchen trash, but already out back in the big can.
Yesterday I couldn’t find my keys–which is not unusual, as I somehow find a way to leave my keys in a different place every time I return home. This, of course, is the root of the problem, which my sweetie husband reminds me of frequently. But sometimes we are too busy or too distracted or too apathetic to deal with the root of the problem.
And so they were lost too, and there was a moment I remembered that involved throwing out the mail, the Arby’s bag, and maybe, just maybe, the keys.
So the coffee grounds and peach pits and said mail all spilled onto the floor while I dug through the trash.
I looked together, I really did. I had on matching clean clothes. I even had on earrings. And flats. But while hunched over the trash looking for my keys, I was who I really am.
I wonder if I’m the only one who needs that reminder.
I dig through trash. I mess up at work. I forget meetings. I don’t treat people’s hearts with enough care. I snap at my kids when they asked for more help than I could give them. And this is the “normal” me.
But something else happened in the midst of that mess this week.
I dug through the trash–but I didn’t rev up on the inside and freak out about it. I messed up some scheduling–and I apologized and moved on. I snapped at the kids–but went back to them and talked about responsibility and grace.
I’m discovering that there is much to be learned when I acknowledge who I really am. I do that by taking a few minutes each morning with God. It isn’t time of deep study. It’s time to actually enter into his presence. I might recite a verse I know by heart to calm my spirit. I might just sit quietly and listen. But whatever it is, it’s a chance to allow the one who knows me, who made me, and who can teach me about myself.
Sometimes we need to acknowledge that we need help learning to love ourselves, to accept grace for the “normal” in all of us. So step boldly into the real you today. And know that the God of grace, and of peace–the God who sees your normal and loves you right in it–that God will treat your honest heart so gently. He is the God of serenity and of power, and he is enough to calm any storm and handle all of you.
