Awake at 5am

It's a beautiful morning and I do feel awake, but a small part of me wishes to crawl back under the covers again. I'm thinking about the day and what we have to do. Breakfast at mum and dad's with Fiona, playgroup Christmas party, washing, picking up Steve's mum from the train station. Have I organised everything for dinner tonight? Will I have time to clean the bathroom? (Do I have to clean the bathroom?)

Lord God, can I please be in denial about having to do these things just a little longer? My calender is so full and I would really just like some time with Steve. I guess I keep waiting and waiting for that chance when here it is. At 5am. Not that Steve would be a willing participant for some 5am quality time, but I'm sure if I could do enough now that I wouldn't have to do it later and then we would have the time.

I guess that's the point though. I'll never be able to do enough, because life just keeps creeping things in. Never will I be accomplished enough to have everything completed. Maybe this is just another reminder about how we can never achieve perfection, or God's standards, or live by the law. We are just failures.

And yet God reaches down to us. Always. With his unfailing and unfathomable love. To remind us that he's already done what needed to be done, and his grace covers all our shortcomings.

I feel like many of my posts end with these reminders from God, and I just want to say that I often don't plan them this way. (In fact, I'd say I almost never plan them this way.) But God is good at reminding me as I type away, and I can't escape from the answers he gives me. In the midst of the sorrow and shame at my inadequacies, God is reaching out and giving me hope.