Sufficient Grace

As I was walking into Walmart today, I thought about my first trip to Walmart with Ziva. She was three weeks old, and even though my Aunt Julie was with me, unused as I was to navigating a shopping cart with a car seat on top of it, I rammed the cart full force into a concrete post outside the store. Going shopping today, I thought (rather smugly) how good I've become at taking Ziva with me wherever I need to go. When we got home from the store, I walked in to the wonderful aroma of the banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I had baked before we left, and I thought (rather smugly again) that I really have it together - clean house, check!; baking, check!; shopping, check!; happy baby, check! It wasn't until after I had unloaded the groceries, fed Ziva, and put her down for a nap that I realized it wasn't the cookies I was smelling, but the candle warmer I had left on while I was gone. Sure...I really have it together.

All of this comes on the heels of a minor meltdown I had Thursday night. Thursday was my first day of school, so the day began with me dropping Ziva off at the staff baby room and crying as I left. Follow that with a fairly chaotic day (as the first day of school usually is), picking Ziva up, coming home, and deciding to make a new, very-labor-intensive recipe of stuffed peppers for dinner. Too late, I realized stuffed peppers was not the wisest choice, and as I couldn't turn time back, I cried through half of the cooking, feeling totally overwhelmed at the prospect of working full-time on top of being a wife, a mom, and a homemaker.

God said His grace is sufficient for us, and today that's a promise full of rest and hope for me. I really do believe I'm supposed to be teaching this year, and already I feel God directing me towards certain students in whom he wants me to invest. I'm in the middle of His will, and His grace is sufficient - for those little moments where I wonder where I left my brain (candle warmer!), and for the major meltdowns. He covers us with His amazing grace, and I know He will continue to meet me with His grace to get me through each and every day. I don't have to be the perfect wife/mom/teacher/woman - His grace fills in the gaps.