Day 1 & 2

So Day 1 was an interesting day. It was a tough day w/the girls acting out and it really seemed like the enemy was doing whatever he could to distract me. Fortunately, it didn't work but it did make things tough to focus on. My goal was to see if I can open my heart enough in my every day life "so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." I want my spiritual life and every day life to collide on a deeper level. I want to see my belief that God loves me pervade every aspect of my day-to-day activities and see my heart change and go deep w/this "unknowable" knowledge.

So on day 1, I found myself wondering throughout the day, how this change in my heart would look. Would I be more loving, more attentive to my friends & family? Will I be more at ease & less critical w/myself? How will this affect how I interact w/my children? How does the grasp of "how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ".....how does that look in day-to-day life? I didn't come to any answers that day but I must say that being able to reflect on this scripture and aspect of God really did pervade my day and had me really thinking about my every action & reaction. I especially thought about my precious girls and that if I could get this down in my everyday little stuff, hopefully my girls will begin to get how God is in the details of their lives. Next to my relationship w/God and my husband, my girls are the most important thing in my life. I want my girls to fall in love w/Jesus and not just grow up to be Sunday-go-to-church Christians but instead become women who live every moment serving and loving Jesus and impact the people around them because of that love. I want to see them live out their faith and not just proclaim it w/words. So how can I model that for them and what does that look like?

That evening a friend posted a chart on facebook that was comparing "Super mom" and "Abiding mom". A handful of the points were:

Super Mom Abiding Mom
Does Is
Tries to impress others Pleases the Lord
Is controlled by an agenda Is controlled by the Holy Spirit
She teaches her kids to be good She teaches her kids to be Godly
She does things w/her children She builds a relationship w/her children

There were quite a few others along w/scripture but these were ones that most impacted me. Without getting off point, one road that God's love led me down was modeling his love to my children and giving me some ideas for what that needs to look like.

Day 2 gave me no new answers until the middle of the day and then it led me to realize that what I may need to do to kick off some of this change is very similar to how we take steps of faith or steps towards security. I need to make the decision in my mind first, take action and TRUST God to make the changes in my heart and feelings. I need to look for the opportunities in my day to day life and be purposeful in my actions and trust God for the rest. That is what I've purposed to do going forward. So I took a few opportunities that day to try and focus on the relationship w/my girls. I picked moments when we were all together (Lily had day camp in the morning) and tried to do things w/them that built the relationship between us. I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. Day 3....