I’m living my ultimate dream. Seriously.

When I was a little girl, I would envision the moment I got married and became a mother as the time when I had arrived, when life would be complete and I would have some stability of my own and it would all be . . . easier.

I think this is called naivety. Dreams are often based on something we don’t know much about because it has yet to happen – we don’t choose a dream we’ve already attained. If we haven’t experienced something, it’s difficult to gain wisdom, right?

But with every dream, there’s a moment when we think, “Oh. This isn’t exactly how I envisioned it.” On this side of heaven, nothing, nothing, nothing will be like where we’ll end-up someday.

It isn’t that I don’t love my life because I do. I’m very aware of how blessed I am. Even on my most difficult days, I know I am blessed beyond what I deserve. And I am indeed living my dream.

One of my dear friends said this of motherhood and being a wife: “I knew it wouldn’t be easy but I just didn’t know it would be this hard.”

Can I get an “amen”?

I didn’t know how selfish I was until I became a mother.

I didn’t know how “in-charge” I could be until I became a wife.

I didn’t know I could be so exhausted that I would put the phone in the freezer and the ice cream on the counter and literally cry with reckless abandon when one of those colicky babies woke up fifteen minutes after falling asleep.

I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

And because I’m human and disabled by the flesh, because I still get tired, because I am not Jesus, I have moments with those I love the very most when I come unglued.

More than I care to admit to be quite honest with you. But I do have the power to change this. Self-control is real and it can happen.

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So when it was time to select a book for our next study, I prayed and it came to me faster than any other book I’ve chosen in the past : Lysa TerKeurst’s book,Unglued: Making Wise Choices in the Midst of Raw Emotions.

The first chapter starts with a funny story about Lysa losing her “stuff” over towels and while our own circumstances might be different, I’m certain many of us can relate to losing it over something we shouldn’t be losing it over.

However, we know we can’t change Rome in a day. We are indeed disabled by the flesh and there will be moments during our Unglued journey in which we’ll act like we’ve never even heard of this book. It’s called imperfect progress. “Imperfect changes are slow steps of progress wrapped in grace . . . imperfect progress,” Lysa says. (p. 14)

No one expects perfection or a quick-fix. In fact, quick-fixes don’t usually last long-term – we want slow and steady and room for grace.

When we become unglued, it’s usually because something isn’t going the way we had planned, isn’t it? The plan may not be bad but maybe just not the way we envisioned it.

Yet when we walk through those wrongly-envisioned plans, sometimes we realize the way the plan unfolded was actually a blessing. For example, Lysa’s computer had a virus and she freaked out. She had to purchase a new computer but luckily, she was able to get some of the information from her sick computer so she downloaded it to a hard drive.

One month later, her new computer was stolen.

Having backed up the missing information on that hard drive when her first computer died, Lysa now had the information she needed in an alternate location. All was not lost. Her sick computer ended up being a blessing in the long-run because she would not have had the hard drive otherwise.

“I can face things that are out of my control and not act out of control,” she writes.

In his book The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears, Mark Batterson says, “Never put a comma where God puts a period, and never put a period where God puts a comma.”

When stuff happens that makes us come unglued, it’s just a comma. And how we live that comma in the moment is how we show grace to the world.

Next Monday, we’ll discuss Chapters Three and Four – and don’t forget about our Facebook discussion on Wednesday night at 9 p.m. (and it’s still not too late to join us – click here to request an invite!)

So for today’s discussion, answer any or all of the following questions in the comments (and feel free to read other’s comments and comment back!)

1. What usually makes you come unglued?

2. Is it hard for you to have grace with yourself? Why or why not?

3. What comes to mind when you think about making a change?

4. Share anything else that caught your attention in Chapters One or Two.

 

 

 

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