A few weeks ago I was out by myself on a Friday night. I had big plans to go grocery shopping, all alone.
It was one of those moments. I was driving along with the music cranked high, singing at the top of my voice. I was enjoying the chance to worship. But as I began to reflect on the Lord’s goodness, tears sprang to my eyes. I was cut to the heart, remembering occasions during the week when I had spoken too sharply to my husband and been impatient with the children.
I was overwhelmed with a myriad of emotions: love for my family, sorrow over my failings, and an acute awareness of the brevity of life. How could I have been impatient or harsh to these people I love so dearly? I was determined to never be impatient or angry again. Never. Never ever ever!
Yet even as I repented and prayed, I was keenly aware that once I stopped worshiping in my car and walked into the house, all bets were off. It wouldn’t take much for me to forget all my lofty ideals and end up right back where I started.
I’ve been a Christian for a long time. The first year saw major changes as glaring sins were forsaken. But now, more than 20 years later, sanctification seems to come more slowly. Pride and selfishness are harder to recognize, and the roots run very deep.
But I will get there. I will! I most definitely will. The hope of the Christian mom’s life is that “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus,” Philippians 1:6.
Wouldn’t it be nice to go directly from who we are at the moment of our salvation to who we will be when we see Jesus face to face? But this process involves time. There is a beginning, and there is a point of completion. We live in the time in-between. A time of almost, but not yet. Of longing, but not attaining.
In this in-between time, Jesus is my hope and certainty—and yours. He is my hope when my sins are ever before me. His blood paid for my sins, and His grace is sufficient for me.
He is my certainty. All that He has promised me, He will fulfill. He is transforming me to look more and more like Him, one brush stroke at a time until the masterpiece is finished.
It won’t be long before I actually will become who I want to be. I’ll be my perfected self for an eternity, and I suspect the sins and shortcomings that plague me now will be barely even a memory then.
“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is,” 1 John 3:2
About Molly Evert
Writer Molly Evert is a wife and homeschooling mom to 6 kids, who range in age from 2 to 18. She runs an educational website, My Audio School (http://www.myaudioschool.com), providing access to the best in children's audio literature. She also blogs at CounterCultural Mom (http://www.counterculturalmom.com) and CounterCultural School (http://www.counterculturalschool.com).
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