Still Standing in Grace

I'm all about failure.
At any given moment, I can probably rattle off 15 things I've failed at in the last week.
You wanna hear some?
(If you don't, you know you can just close my blog window in your browser, right?)

I failed to resist a second carrot cake cupcake. And a third.
I failed to keep up with e-mail.
I failed to make homemade tahini. (Darn near close to swearing over this one. Trashed my kitchen as well as an hour of homeschool. I just wanted hummus, OK?)
I failed to finish watching a video I needed to watch before Joseph started a school assignment.
I failed to be nice to my kids all day.
I failed to read my Bible on Sunday morning...BEFORE going off to teach a classful of people about the Bible.
I failed to reply gently at home and instead chose wrath.
I failed to be patient when one of my kids spilled for the eleventy-hundredth time.
I failed to work on my memory verses.

I'm telling you....I could go on like this for awhile.
And it would NOT get prettier.
It's what I do.
Really well.
Rehearsing failure.

I've had to come back to the verses Brian gave me for my 40th birthday and really let God fill me up again with the knowledge that I stand in grace. (Romans 5:1-5) I stand in it. I'm not straining to get some, holding out my tongue for one measly drop, begging on my knees for it, peering into the distance to spot it. I'm standing in it. Right now. Both feet. Planted. Grace flowing over them so strongly, so deeply, more refreshing than the clear cold water of a mountain stream washing over my feet after a long hike.

Can I tell you some of the grace in my week?

-Sunshine on my face, flooding me with warmth. (Vitamin D junkie here.)
-Children who wrap their arms around me five minutes after I unleash unholy wrath on them about something that doesn't matter.
-A son who helped me work on the memory verses that are kicking my tail.
-Hummus that turned out just fine without any tahini at all.
-A chicken recipe that said it would taste like ChickFilA and actually did. (http://foodbabe.com/2011/07/24/chick-fil-a-now-open-on-sunday/) Of course, I adapted this recipe to fit our special needs and it was still super good.
-Really, really good carrot cupcakes that I can eat.
-A husband who doesn't see me as or treat me as a failure.
-Sweet, encouraging emails from people who don't guilt me about my times of email overload and long response time.
-A great time of learning side-by-side with Joseph even though I wasn't prepared ahead of time.
-A Bible, still precious, still living and active, right there for me on Monday morning.

And....how about a Savior who pours out grace on me leaving me more and more hopelessly captivated? Who else would do that? The pouring out grace thing? Who looks at a funny little failure-obsessed middle-aged allergy queen with way prematurely gray hair who gets lost driving 5 minutes from home, who can't deal with spills, who can't catch a ball, who cries recreationally, and whose decibel level requires ear plugs at times and says, "I love her. I'd like to pour grace all over her. Forever. She's mine." Seriously. Wow. Every single time I sit for more than 5 seconds and ponder the hugeness of what has been given to me, I kind of freak out. In a good way.