Receiving the Gift of Today

Anytime we’re struggling our immediate thought is, oh, no, I’m a terrible mom. And I’m not saying that we don’t have personal responsibility for things we absolutely do. But the personal responsibility that you need to take is not that you’re a garbage human, right. The personal responsibility that you can take is, oh, hey, I am noticing that this is a strange transition or we don’t quite have our flow yet, or haven’t sat down to really even think about what our rhythms are going to be. So that’s a healthy way of taking responsibility, but it should feel kind of neutral. Like you’re just a scientist observing your own life and looking for ways to improve it. It shouldn’t feel like shaming yourself and yelling at yourself. So, I don’t know, I don’t know what’s going on, like maybe us in America as a country. Are we all just kind of on the edge of waiting for election things, is it economy things, like who knows. And then, you know, the spirit, the religious people are always like the signs, look at the signs; it’s fulfilling the prophecy. So, I don’t know about that either, but I do know that you get to control how you feel throughout the day. I do know that you get to control how you feel throughout the day. And a little bit, that’s still shocking to me because my brain, my brain’s default thinking is still, oh, no, life is happening to me and it hurts and I can’t do anything about it.

But you have the ability to look at what’s going on around you and receive it. I want you to imagine that God designed each day, like a present for you. And he thought about it and he handcrafted it and he put it in a beautiful box, with your name on it. And every day he gives it to you and he’s like, hey, Sterling this is my gift to you today, the gift of today and what’s going to happen. And we know that there are many different ways to receive gifts, right? Sometimes we receive gifts with entitlement, like we open up the gift and we’re like, ugh, that’s not what I wanted for the revoice that out loud or not. Sometimes we receive beautiful gifts and we think, oh, that’s too much, I don’t deserve this gift. And I think that there is a way to receive a gift with pure humility and modesty and just say, thank you. I think there’s a false version of that though. Where we want to feel that, and we’re kind of faking it. And so each day that God gives you, is this present, it’s a gift and it’s perfectly designed for you. It’s the exact recipe of what you need in your life right now. So I want you to think about yesterday; think about the difficult things. Think about the good things and some of the good things are just really ordinary things, like we just were a family and we lived our life, we ate three meals, and we did some stuff.

God is giving you this gift, he gave that to you yesterday. How are you receiving it? Like, what kind of gift receiver are you being for the Lord right now? We watched the new episode of the chosen that came out on Sunday. And at the very beginning, you know, David is crying because he wants to learn to save his baby with the Sheba. And the baby dies, which we know from the Bible, the first one and she is so upset and he says, you know, We love the Lord, give thanks and praise to God. And she said, how could you do that? And he said, we have to do that. We have to do it in the good times and in the sorrowful times, and that was a great example of David receiving what was happening that day. I think on the worst day that a parent can think of and he just received it. He wasn’t happy; he wasn’t dancing; but he just received it. And so whatever you’re experiencing in your life. But particularly I’m thinking about moms kind of transitioning over to summer. Maybe your kids aren’t even home yet. Maybe you’ve had a few days, maybe your kids are older and that’s a whole northern rodeo. And then for those of you who had the kids out of the house, you know, even, even your life changes. Weather changes, how you’re spending your time changes. How are you receiving each day, like a gift from the Lord? Or are you saying, Lord, I want to return it, I want a different gift, that’s not the one I wanted.

Are you able to receive even the good things? It’s interesting that sometimes that’s the harder work for some of you. To receive the life that you have, especially those of you who grew up, you know, in poverty or chaos and maybe now you’re more financially stable and you have just a calm life. It might be really hard for your brain to accept that and to receive it. And if that’s you, what’s interesting is those brains often create chaos and problems because they just have such a hard time receiving, hey things are okay, I’m safe. So the other thing I noticed with a lot of moms is that they kept telling me like, oh, I need to plan the summer, I need to plan the summer. Like they have to plan the whole thing. I said, you don’t need to plan the whole thing. You just need to know what you’re doing today and maybe for the week. Today and for the week, we don’t need to plan the whole summer. Summer ebbs and flows anyway. June is different than July, which is different than August. They all have different kinds of seams to them. You’re not behind, you don’t need to sign up the kids for all the things, all the things, unless you want to. But if you don’t want to, or you can’t afford that, that doesn’t mean your kids are going to have a bad summer. Like you need to feed them and I recommend praying with them every day and if you can read a couple books to them, I think you’re doing a fantastic job.

And obviously I’m a big fan of planning. We do that a lot in the membership and we’re doing that over the summer and we’re really encouraging women to pray for 10 minutes a day, plan for 10 minutes a day and move their bodies for 10 minutes a day. So I’m a big fan of that, but don’t make an idol out of planning to the point where when you haven’t planned that you have lots of shame and anxiety. Particularly the whole summer, I think that it’s okay that you haven’t laid out all the things that you’re going to do for the summer. I really like the one on moms, do the, hey, here’s what you have to do before you get screens. And there’s tons of examples of that online if you wanted to implement that. I have not implemented that yet because I didn’t, I’m not ready for whining and enforcing that and my kids are out to go camping for a week. And I think we’ll do that when they come back and maybe even the week after they come back, and so that’s an example of something where I think it’s such a good thing when people do that, that practice, I think, oh, that sounds so great. But also, I don’t feel like I need to do it and I know it will make my life harder. And so it’s okay to just breathe and take a minute before you implement something like that and you don’t have to do that. I don’t think we’ve ever done that.

No summer, have we done that, you have to do these things. But this summer, I really want to help the children grow in virtue and grow in virtue myself. And so that’s why I wanted to make a list of things that we, we really do obediently on a daily basis. So for me, actually, the list will end up being much more about virtues training then. Maybe you have to do these things before you can listen to an audio book. I want you to hear the calmness in my voice; I want you to hear the detachment from all that I have, like we’re going to live through the summer. We do not need to be stressed about it. And I’m not phoning it in, I’m not like there will be no structure or I will think about it no times. But I’m not letting it grip me and for us, and maybe others are experiencing this too. You know, I really feel like we’re not going to kick off whatever we’re doing for summer routine until the third or fourth week of June. And our co-op ended. I mean, if we’re tying it to school, right. That ended mid may. So it will have taken a while for us to kind of get into the groove of things. And that’s just fine, God wants you to be at peace. He wants you to receive each day as a gift. He wants you to choose him. He wants you to trust him. He does not want you to make your life harder than it needs to be. And so I want to invite you, to wake up every day and think, I wonder what gift of a day God has for me today.

And no matter what it is, receive it because he is good and he knows what you need. And he knows the blessings that you need, and he knows the trials that you need. And when we receive it, and we do not add drama on top of it, her life is pretty good. We just handle things. You can handle a lot of pain, my friends, when it comes from him, when he says this is the fire and it is refining, you. It is melting you down and making you into something new so that you are worthy of being in heaven with me. And the worthiness, by the way, it’s not our intrinsic worth, right. Our intrinsic worth is completely perfect and we’re completely lovable. But in order to go to heaven we have to repent and believe in the gospel and the repenting part is knowing that we sin. Asking, I think daily for forgiveness for sins, but then also often in the sacrament of reconciliation. But believe in the gospel, what does that mean? Well, it means that, you know, that Christ is the son of God. Then you deserve to go to hell but because of him we can abandon ourselves to him and because of his sacrifice God, the father will have mercy on us and we can go to heaven. But if you really believed that, you would live differently than the people who don’t believe that. And so if we say that we believe that he is who he is and that he cares for us and then he takes care of us and that God is good. And he’s all knowing he’s all powerful, please attribute to the Lord.

Why are we freaking out? Why do we feel such misplaced guilt and shame? Guilt and shame are appropriate and biblical feelings regarding sin. But what sin have you committed by not making a daily summer schedule? I want you to receive every day as a gift, that is how Mary lived she just received everything unquestionably. All right? Just imagine that they needed to go somewhere and they’re walking or riding camels or whatever it looked like and then it started raining. And she’d be like, praise God for the rain and then it would dry up and it would be super hot and she’d say praise God for the sun. She would just receive whatever gift of a day that God gave her. I think planning is good, but I want to bring your brain more into the present and just know that today is going to be a perfect day for you whatever happens. Do not add unnecessary stress on top of it. He is a good and loving father. He does not want that.

All right my friends, be encouraging to each other. Point each other back to Jesus. I want you to ask your friends, have you prayed about that? You know, we talk about what’s difficult about life with our friends, which is so important. It’s good to have friends and to say, oh, I’m having a hard time, this is hard. You know, listen to your friends and then I want you to say, have you prayed about that? What have you heard from the Lord? What is he telling you? Let us be women who constantly point each other back to the Lord. And if we’re not hearing something, start reading your Bible. Put those words in your mind and it is so much easier than to hear his.

All right my friends, I’m praying for you. Please pray for me. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.