Really?

This weekend I added two years to my life. That's not saying much as having children has surely sucked at least 4 years of my life away (2 per child). What?? I have two kids?? I am a grownup?? What? This feels more like reality:

I'm a mom with a mortgage and a car payment and meals to plan out weekly and poop to clean up hourly...but for three shining days... I was just a girl... asking sleep...to love me again (a nod to Runaway Bride for any movie quote fiends out there.)
We all were. Of course we missed our kiddos and instead of buying cute outfits or accessories at the little boutiques we shopped at, we all walked out with ridiculous little trinkets for our little carrier monkeys. But- we did not miss the opportunity to have more than one Mojito, wear as little clothing as possible, and talk about things no ladies should really talk about (grin). This was a weekend of sharing our hearts and then ten minutes later making crude jokes and joking about our bra sizes (I won the title as the girl with the least amount of back pain in the group. That's a nice way of saying my boobs have shrunk so much they are now inverted. Nice.)

Favorite moments in no specific order: 1) running on the beach and then swimming in the frigid ocean afterward. It was glorious! 2) mixing Mojitos like I knew what I was doing. 3) making fabric flowers and almost burning the house down with the enormous amount of matches we used to curl the edes of the fabric. 4) riding in the oh so fun red jeep and feeling like a college kid. 5) playing with the two cutie-patootie babies who tagged along. 6) laughing. a lot. and loudly. 7) having massages done in the beach house. hats off to our awesome masseuse Shanna. 8) and of course chatting it up with gals I love so much.

God is so good to offer moments of respite from the daily grind. Now that we are back to reality I am battling to be still and know that he is God. Knowing He is God and He is in control and I have only to lay my life at his feet and forsake all other things in order to follow Christ wholly feels like a monumental task at times. What feels even more monumental is when I forget that I am poor, pitiful, blind and naked on my best day and I truly believe I can do anything good on my own effort. Whew! Talk about a ridiculous and exhausting lie to believe.

I was reminded this weekend that I have a long way to go in the area of battling sin. Don't we all? There are things I am so embarrassed by, old sin patterns that rear their ugly heads at the most inopportune times.

I was also reminded that He provides grace and forgiveness through Christ and that I am not alone in this battle. I have amazing friends who pray for me and call me out when I'm being an ass. I pray I never take this gift for granted. As a last thought, I want to be aware of the lies being thrown at us women EVERY day. Comparison is disgusting and has no place in my thought life. God created each one of us to serve a significant role in this world and the minute we muddy up this truth with the fear that we are not enough or will never compare to the next gal who seems more beautiful, put together, emotionally stable or extremely talented: we have basically spat in the Lord's face. Am I living in the Spirit of God these days? Am I easily discouraged or easily irritated? If so I do not have the peace of God or the Spirit of love. I'll let that one roll around in my head tonight. I promised myself I would get to bed at a decent hour and now it is 11:30...at least 3 hours past my bed time.