I lost my wallet yesterday.

The last place I was didn’t have it.

The thoughts began to come.  I can’t believe you did this.  Why weren’t you paying attention?  Who can I blame?  What were you thinking?  

I felt I could step back and see differently but those thoughts of defeat still came.

You know when you are walking out this freedom challenges still come, the temptation to flee or to stay present still come, and the belief that you are not enough attack.

It was honestly a hectic leave from that store.  Within five minutes, we had forgotten to pay for two things, our youngest is climbing out of the cart, and my daughter is asking for candy as we are trying to get out of the store. Can anyone relate?  None of these are the blame, but they are normal every day circumstances.  They just all happened to come in closely.  I was thrown off, and I left my wallet.  That is the truth.

None of those things point to me being a bad mom, disorganized, busy, or overworking even though those are things I could blame myself with.

There’s something different happens when you know you can fail.  When you have similar feelings or thoughts, but they don’t have to knock you off course life before.  They don’t get to jump in the drivers seat.

My freedom from condemnation in Christ still stands.  And in that freedom, there is freedom to “not have it together.”  Freedom to have a bad moment.  Freedom to be disorganized.  Because grace will stand us back up when we fail.  It will look us in the eye and say “no, look at me, those things are who you are.”

We all fail, but our God never will.  So even when our world seems to fall apart for a moment, our God has not left us, looked away, or even blinked.  He is there moving and loving.  Loving in a way that will never fail us.  It will never fail us to look to love first.

My wallet was found.  Hallelujah.  And no matter what, God is still God in all of that time of waiting, wondering what I needed to do, and where to go first.

Where have you failed today?  Beat yourself up?  Try to love on yourself first.  Just take it as a learning experience to love those around you, because you can’t love your neighbors well unless you try it on yourself first.