You are justified.

Hey friends, welcome back! It is almost Christmas! I’m here to tell you that you are doing great! This time of the year can be wonderful but also make you feel "less than". There is so much to do to keep the spirit alive. There is so many places to be, that it is sometimes hard to feel like you are centered with the people that matter the most. There is so many expectations from so many people and that is HARD. Especially when you feel like you aren't able to concentrate on the real reason we are doing it all in the first place. The birth of Jesus. So give yourself some grace… and know that what you are doing is enough. You are enough.

Was that something you needed to hear? Was that something you needed to hear a long time ago? Because really this feeling can come more than just during the holiday season. It’s amplified by the lights, and the activities, and the want to make things perfect for our families or children. It effects us differently depending on your season of life. And we are all in our own season. Maybe you are a parent, just surviving. Maybe you are a business person, trying to stay afloat or meet your end- of- year quota. Maybe you are a spouse, trying to put your partner first. Sometimes it feels like we are everything for everyone… but ourselves. And it is okay to be more than one thing… I’m not saying that! But you have to stay true to yourself, in every season. In the Holiday season. The season of parenthood. The season of work. The season of sickness. I once wrote a blog about “the season of unknown.” The baseball off season… where we don’t know what’s coming next. We are in the middle of that too. But remember that every season of life is just that... a season. Most days I struggle with being in a stage of life where I am "just a mom". I have people ask me all the time "and what do you do?" And I could list the all the things I do during the day. The constant state of chaos that ensues in our home (or hotel.. depending on where we may be at the time). How I make the food, and wash the clothes, and the time I spend trying to make sure my daughter is a well rounded human being who knows her letters, numbers, and bits and pieces of the different languages we need to know. I could talk about how I pack and travel and do my best to keep my little family whole and wherever God has sent us... but instead I say "I’m just a mom but we get to watch a lot of baseball"... but I am not just a mom. And Tyler is not just an athlete. He is the best dad. An attentive husband. He is a handy human being (if he wants to do it… he will figure out how), a mentor, a man of God. He sings, he prays, he is humble to a fault. No one is ever just anything. What we all are is justified. Romans 5 tells us "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! How cool is that!

Your worth is not in what you do, how well you cook & clean, or how much you paid for the Christmas gifts under the tree. Your worth is in…. Jesus. In being God’s light. It isn’t in what you do, it’s in who you are raising. If you don’t have children, it’s in your spouse or your friends, the family you chose. It’s in your coworkers. In the stranger you pass on the street. Every smile you smile. Every pray you send up. Every phone call you make. Every hug you give. Its important. It matters. Your greatest contribution is the souls you are shaping.  Raising children and showing others the light and love of the Lord is the greatest work you will ever do. If you are “making Heaven full” you are doing something right. I don’t know… maybe I’m rambling, or maybe you actually needed to hear this.  But never stop stepping out in faith. Let God instill confidence in you. What you do and what you have to say is significant. You are not just a parent, a coworker, a caregiver, or a friend. YOU are justified!

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

-Romans 5:1-5