Dear Me,
A few weeks ago, you wrote out a couple of New Year’s resolutions. They were fierce.
You said you were going to cut back on Facebook and focus on being present with your family. You were going to keep your sink clean and work out every day. You were going to get up early and be more intentional with your time so you could be a better steward of your gifts. You were not, not, not going to get frustrated with your beginning readers during homeschool time, even if it takes all year before they can distinguish between “a” and “the”.
So. How are things going?
I imagine some things are going pretty well. After all, you’re pretty tenacious when you have a mind to be, and it’s not really that hard to clean the sink.
Other things are not going so well. Those resolutions you made because you don’t like your body or the way your career is going or how easily you fritter away the time? Those are the ones that matter, and those resolutions are the ones you’re struggling with, aren’t they? You put in a good two or three days, but already, things are starting to slide.
Might I offer you a suggestion, since I know you so well?
Stop giving yourself grace.
You heard me: enough with the grace.
It sounds almost unholy, but there is no room for grace when you are attempting to change bad habits or establish new, healthy ones. There isn’t.
You have to give that new discipline time to take root, and quite honestly, it’s barely sprouted.
After all, we’re only fifteen days into January. You’ve successfully made good on your commitment to workout for what, two weeks now?
I have news for you: you have not yet earned the grace you so readily offer yourself.
In order for grace to be grace, it has to be the exception, not the rule. You have to get out of bed day, after day, after day, after day and do the thing you set out to do before you can play the grace card.
Grace comes after the law has been established. Not before.
Otherwise grace is not grace at all, but license, license to do the very thing you have declared to be destructive to your health and happiness and license to ignore the things you know will make your life better.
Let me ask you this: Do you really want to give yourself permission to keep the parts of your life that aren’t working? Do you really want to stay ineffective, irresponsible, and unproductive? Do you really want to settle for a life that’s less than it could be?
Well, then, go ahead and accept the consolation of so-called grace. I’ll even give you some grace-laced phrases to help you out. Look yourself in the mirror and say, “I’m just going to ease into it,” or “I’ll start tomorrow,” or “Our homeschool day really isn’t so bad.”
Go ahead. Give yourself permission to violate the very standard you have set for yourself. Blame it on circumstances. Blame it on the kids. Blame it on whatever you want, just don’t take responsibility for it yourself.
Because if you want to live an ineffective life, I promise, the best way to do it is to keep on accepting defeat as coincidental, circumstantial, or outside of your control. Keep on giving yourself the grace of excuses.
But if you want to change your life, stop it.
Stop giving yourself that kind of grace.
Do not use the circumstances of your life
as an excuse
not to change the circumstances of your life.
It’s not like your circumstances are really that unique. Everyone has trouble getting up in the morning. Everyone is tempted to eat chocolate instead of salad. Everyone is busy. Can you think of one circumstance of yours that is so much of an impairment, it leaves you impotent to change?
I didn’t think so.
Allow me to give you this exhortation: Do not be a victim of your circumstances. You can choose to change or you can choose not to change, but know this: either way, you’re making a choice.
Oh, you say, not everything is my choice. I did not choose to have this chronic insomnia or children with learning issues or a house that won’t clean itself.
No, you didn’t. But you do choose what to do with them. More importantly, you choose whether or not to let those immovable circumstances dictate all your other choices. You choose to stay in the game and move the pieces you can, or you choose to quit.
You choose to get up when the alarm goes off whether you feel like it or not. You can stay in bed and whine about how you didn’t sleep well last night and therefore should not be required to get up when you said you would, or you can remind yourself that many people have faced far greater challenges than you have, and have done far more with their lives in spite of it.
A person with no legs has run a marathon. A deaf person has composed symphonies. A paraplegic has taught herself to paint with her mouth because she cannot move her arms. An exhausted mother has taught her severely autistic son to read.
They did not take the grace.
Today, you have the same choice. Will you take the grace? Or will you give your healthy patterns and behaviors to take root in your life? You know what I’m hoping you’ll do.
I’m hoping you don’t take the grace.
I hope it’s not too late to tell you I bought a new dress and I stopped giving myself grace. Each day, I stop a little more and listen a little harder. I see you and I love you. I’ve read 8 or 9 posts tonight and I need to get to bed. I’ve debated whether or not I should tell you this.
(Galatians 2 (the Message)) What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it.
(Number 6:24-26) The Message))
God bless you and keep you,
God smile on you and gift you,
God look you full in the face
and make you prosper.
Thank you. I arrived at New Year’s uncharacteristically unmotivated. As in, for the first time in at least 8 years, I made no resolutions. “I was busy” I told myself. “I’ve been too ambitious in the past and haven’t acted on my resolutions.” “What’s the point in trying and failing?” Beating myself up about the things that didn’t get done used to be my normal state. In 2013 I gave myself “grace.” Your post showed me I gave myself license.
I gave myself license to check facebook instead of taking care of the bookkeeping. I gave myself license to watch a movie… many movies… rather than serve my family. I gave myself license to laziness rather than pursue skills and education. I gave myself license to skip exercise and memorization and meditation on God’s Word and sleep a few minutes later and cut my private worship down. All in the name of grace. It wasn’t freeing. Indulgence felt good for the moment. It felt terrible in the long term. It left me terribly discouraged about this life I live.
I’m happy to step forward setting goals and making resolutions knowing that God’s forgiveness is there when I fail but that my efforts matter too. I need to take responsibility. Thank you for showing me that I got in my own way. Thank you for sharing the one post in many I’ve read over the past couple weeks that showed me my problem and helped me to face it.
I did the same thing, Shannon, only it was when we moved to El Paso from Washington this summer. I let myself get all out of my routine and I gave myself all sorts of grace because “we just moved.” Well, four months later, I was still being a sloth, and four months later, we had not “just moved.” I too was serving self over family, personal worship and Bible study, health, ministry…all of it.
I was afraid people would misunderstand my use of the word “grace” in this context, but I’m thankful for people like you would understood and needed to hear the same thing God was impressing on me. Now, let’s get to it. 🙂
This post is great! You should write more posts like these; it really motivated and inspired me. I read it two days ago but didn’t leave a comment then. But your words about using grace as a license for ourselves are so powerful and the message from this post has been very much in my mind the past couple of days.
In fact, I even dreamed about it! It prompted me to get up earlier than usual to start work on one of my goals, rather than hitting the snooze button two or three times. I think I’ll bookmark this post and return to it whenever I need some motivation. Thank you.
Thank you, Grace! I put into words what I needed to hear myself, but I’m afraid to do that sometimes because I don’t want to come across as harsh or judgmental. I’m just preaching to myself. You all got to listen in. 🙂
Wow. Well said. Clean your sink….are you into flylady.org?
I have a friend who was really into Fly Lady, and she told me about the clean sink rule. I have never kept it, though, not until my husband teased me one night because I would load up the dishwasher after dinner but leave the sink dirty. (I’m telling you all my secrets now.) He said, “Why do you put all the dishes in the dishwasher but leave the sink looking gross?” BECAUSE I’M LAZY, THAT’S WHY! I decided I could do better. 🙂
Powerful! New perspective on Grace, for sure. Grace vs license was enlightening and something I will use to evaluate my actions in many areas. Thanks so much.
Thank you for writing this, I was meant to read it. I have been giving myself licence to hold a Martyrdom Festival that has been going on for far too long 🙂 One thing I have resolved to do is to write a similar letter to myself and keep it where I can reread it when necessary. It’s finding a balance between self discipline and being kind to oneself that is sometimes so difficult.
Martyrdom Festival. Yep. I’ve held those too!
I couldn’t agree with you more. I’m kinda tired of all the “give yourself grace” mantra posts out there. Buckle down and do something about it! But maybe that’s why we’re friends (via the internet though we’d be friends IRL too 😉 ). Way to go, mama!!!
DEFINITELY we’d be friends IRL too. For sure!
Wow, sis! How did you know what I needed to hear today? I prefer to call them goals as opposed to New Year’s resolutions because I can make goals anytime, but it’s the same thing really. I want to break my goals into bite-sized pieces – things that are attainable. Guess I really need to get on that and stop giving myself grace and waiting till “tomorrow”. Tomorrow doesn’t ever come anyway. 😉 Thanks for this. I’m going to get up and go work on a goal right now.
Wowww…
I bet it took courage to publish this post…
I don’t think I agree with all of it, but I think I understand what you’re trying to say.
Around here, we define Grace as: “the ability to do what God has called for you to do.”
Thank you for your kind insight. It WAS hard to publish. I almost didn’t do it, and I’m bracing myself for some ungraceful comments especially because I am using the word “grace” in a way that is not typical to make the point that I (and I’m only speaking to myself here) am too quick to excuse myself from doing the hard things because my circumstances are not ideal. Circumstances will never be ideal. If God has convicted me about some sin or failing or need for change in my life, then I best not coddle myself with excuses and call them grace.
Thank you for reading and keeping an open mind. And I love your definition of grace! It is true–God has to give us the ability to do what He has called us to do, and we must trust Him to give us the strength that is beyond us.
I totally get the article’s use of the word grace and your definition of grace leads us to correcting the excuses we consider “grace” when we don’t feel like making the changes God has asked of us.
God, please help us choose to DO the changes you’ve called us to do.
Amen. We need that grace for action, not for license!