Kristen is an Air Force wife, enthusiastic mama and country girl writer. She is a joy hunter-downer who writes of looking upward for fresh-air encouragement at Chasing Blue Skies. She and her husband David have 3 precious young’uns, twin sons (age 11) and a daughter (age 7). Kristen and her family enjoy their home under the wide-blue-skies of glorious Colorado.

I kept repeating it over and over in the car:

“You suck, you suck, you suck, you suck.”

It was an out-of-tune but familiar song, these words composed by me and for me. I was leaving a friend’s recital rehearsal where I didn’t play well. While the other musicians mastered the difficult music, I struggled. And since I was the youngest of the group, I felt even more insecure about my ability. I practiced it ’til I was blue in the face {literally}, but I just couldn’t get the complicated rhythms under my fingers.

flickr photo credit :: Horia Varian

So, I berated myself over it. Beating myself up black and blue…now there’s a rhythm I play all too well!

This personality trait comes out in other areas of life, like how I must explain away any compliment I receive. If you say my dinner tastes yummy, I’ll tell you all the things that went wrong with it. If you tell me you like my hair, I’ll tell you about my pesky gray spots.

The heart of my problem? I don’t give myself an inch of grace. And while this may seem like a more acceptable, pious form of humility, it’s really just ingratitude in an ugly dress.

When I get a compliment but stammer and make excuses for it, I am taking the gift from God spoken through another person and saying, “No thanks! Not interested!” as I hand it right back to them. I’m shoving the gesture-and the gift-back in their face.

And sometimes? That buttoned-up-and-stiff-collared ingratitude will bring along her detestable, attention-hungry big brother named pride. Quite a pair they are, ingratitude and pride. They run around together, wrecking havoc and trampling grace.

If I can’t humble myself enough to just say, “Thank you!” by accepting a compliment, I am being prideful, not graceful.

Eventually, I mastered my friend’s difficult recital music and played well at the performance. How? I practiced. I kept after it ’til I had the rhythms down and could play them in my sleep. It seems practicing is a good way I will learn to give myself grace, too. When I’m tempted to trash talk myself, I remember whose treasured possession I am. I choose to exchange lies for Truth. When I feel tempted to give excuses after a compliment, I can choose to give a simple “Thank you!” instead.

God’s grace is sufficient, and His strength comes into its own in my weakness. Change won’t happen overnight, and I’ll have to practice a lot to get these rhythms under my fingers.

But I can give myself a little grace for that.

Do you have a difficult time giving yourself grace?

I met Kristen for about 5 seconds at the Relevant Blogging Conference last October.  I walked away thinking, “I wish I had more time to talk with her!”  I also bump into her at all my favorite blog spots {we have the same taste in encouragers I think!}  I love her new blog Chasing Blue Skies - it is a breath of fresh air and I know you will love it.  I’m so grateful she took the time today to remind me that giving myself Grace is always a good idea, especially when my girls are watching and imitating my every word!

**for other stories of Grace, click here.

Sara and her husband, Nate, are approaching a decade of marriage. They have two children and are adopting two more from Uganda. She writes regularly about their adoptions, the Father’s love, prayer, and perseverance through pain at Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet.

My words hurled, like paint splattered on canvas, staining our surroundings, damaging his person. I walked carelessly through his heart, aware mostly – only – of my own hurt. Self-drunk, reaching for just one more drink.

What sprung up from my mouth was only a portion of what stewed within. Years of hurt, whose origin pre-dated my husband, nothing especially out of the ordinary – sin’s impact which infects us all – found an extra-ordinary expression.

I was wounded, inflicting wounds even to my God-given safe place.

He absorbed them, yet he still held me, tender. A first sign of grace, engaging me at my worst. God’s steward of my heart wore his role. He wrapped his arms around my hollow self and whispered beauty to my barrenness.

Photo courtesy of Lucy O Photography

I wish this was one incident, one lapse I could refer back to as a single dark moment in my newlywed bliss. But my critical eye became my pet demon. Sometimes its loud expression was a cacophony in our home, but, most times, it was a subtle dissatisfaction; no watchman for my eye-gate, and my heart grew sour.

Change him, Lord, I professed in my secret prayers. Eve’s apple was my feast and I joined the ranks of the women of ages whose secret discontent was the log-jam in their vision and the demise of what could have been so stunning. Liberal with intercession for his heart change, I was penny-wise in the awareness of my heart-needing-change.

I made a case against him.

But here’s what I discovered: the issue wasn’t our marriage and the issue wasn’t my lack of self-control — the issue was my heart-stance before God. He knew me as bride, and I painted Him as Master. And only a true brush with kindness would lead to life-repentance.

He dispensed grace in stages, in a way only the One who is Mercy can do. God’s love is patient. And the greatest dispensation came when I prayed words He put in me, back to Him. Let me see Nate with your eyes. Ordinary prayer ruptured my normal.

And like a watershed, He responded. One night, just days after this prayer, we came off of an ill-handled conflict and my husband poured out his fears and weaknesses. Suddenly, I saw.

Grace falling out of blue sky onto long-dry soil. And I drank.

For one of the first times in my life, I tasted beauty. The way my Father saw my husband was spectacular. And the kindness of His revelation brought a watering of repentance from within me.

My eyes were opened. Crystal clear, I saw this man who was the prized subject of God’s first-ever whisper into my spirit. “You will marry Nate” on that fall day that felt like summer was a promise that I stuffed in my pocket — to later call a curse, when I had no one else to blame for my sin-stained self.

And when I asked for His eyes for this man, He advanced promise and I wept relief.

We spent hours talking. Me, practicing words my heart had not known before and him receiving healing balm. He applied grace to my deep regret, I spoke grace to the insides I had broken … and we both received a new revelation of the Father who keeps His promises.

As time has unfolded since that one-day prayer, me stumbling through speaking life through a tongue that’s been trained by years of speaking death, I’ve watched our story unfold to a testimony.

The man who once built walls against my input (because why would he not after my expression’s “free” speech?) has made me his secret confidante. Our house is becoming the table of counsel, hearing from God, hearing from each other, adventuring life. My early-marriage prayers for change in him were not entirely unfounded, just skewed. Jesus’ grace washed over me and finally gave hunger to remove the log. And to finally see clearly. This man, as God has made him, but ultimately God, as He really is.

A promise-keeper. Not only washing over sin, but promising redemption of every fallen place.

And I live healing. And breathe believing for every single one of my broken places.

*****

I first fell in love with the art that is Sara’s words when she submitted a guest post to MODsquad.  Since then, she has graciously agreed to be a monthly contributor.   I  love her story, and I’m praying for her 2 not yet home children to make their way to her and Nate’s arms soon!  Won’t you join me, in doing the same? Be sure to visit her newly designed  beautiful blog. Do yourself a favor and subscribe while your there. Thanks Sara for sharing Grace with us today!