A little rusty, but I'm back. Judging you!

Oh, blog friends. it has been a while. November 29, to be exact.
I guess you can take that as a good sign. :) I am fully engaged in my parenting.
That...and.. since the beginning of the year I have started a job (a very fun one), moved, unpacked, closed on a house and made an offer on a new house...with the closing in 30 days if it gets approved on Monday.  WOW.  
Life with two toddlers is immeasurably more busy than I could have anticipated. But honestly, I. LOVE. IT.

this post...it must stand alone about something near and dear to me. judgement. No, i don't love judgement. I don't love when others judge me. And I don't love judging others.
But let's be honest. You judge me. That's right, I'm talking to you. We ALL do it. Unintentionally. Intentionally. It just happens. You walk by me and my kids, and you make judgements whether you mean to or not.  I walk by your kids and make judgements whether I mean to or not.  They range from sweet to quite snarky.
 "They are cute", "They are snotty and gross, if they were mine I would clean them up"(surely you have never thought that about my snotty snotty children?? :)  "Wow, I love how she talks to her kids, I want to be that way" "Wow, I wonder how she has two children, one black and one white..."  "I can't believe she feeds her children processed foods" "Why does she work when she could be at home?" "Why does she complain about money if she's going to stay at home?" "Why doesn't she homeschool if she was a teacher" "Why would they EVER homeschool? It's such a weird thing to do" "Why do they choose to spend money on this and not that?" "Why don't they .... (it goes on and on and on...)
Do you know what's funny? How drastically my judgements changed after one child. How SORRY I was for many judgements I had made. I lost a baby. I had to choose whether to carry a life. I will never EVER judge someone in that spot. I would have before. But now I get it. I had Finn.  I thought, "Oh goodness, if I knew how hard this was, I never would have judged" "If I knew how awesome but challenging nursing was, I would have given moms grace"
Oh, but then number two came along. And those of you with two children....you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about.
The perfectly manicured finger nails. The bathtime every night. A thing of the past. The well groomed hair? We're lucky to have hair that is washed, mmkay?  The snot on the face. The hair smattered to the forehead with ketchup. "Well, at least they aren't biting each other", us mothers of two think.
But then some of us, who really have it together, we judge others on their friends food choices or choices of schooling.  "Why doesn't she feed her kids whole foods?"  "Why does she choose public school when she could home school"? 
Do you know what's pretty funny? AFTER we go through something, if we are compassionate people, SUDDENLY, we have GRACE for others that have walked the same path.  Other paths? NO! The path we walked? Of course!  
Do you know what I think? I think we should all take it easy and give each other some grace. I think we should listen to what Jesus says and love one another as we would love ourselves. I think we should remember that in this world....we will have trouble. WE will SIN.  (ROMANS 3:23 For all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God) We will make mistakes. We will JUDGE. (JAMES 4:12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?)   But instead of sitting by and looking at our brothers and sisters in christ thinking "Why did they do that?"...why don't we come alongside them and say, "Let's walk through this together, whether I agree with you or not".  
And I don't know about you...but I want others to see my faults. Disagree with me. Love me ANYWAY.   See my mess. My disorganization. LOVE ME ANYWAY. See my timeliness (LACK OF), my tardy, swift driving to make it seem like I just got stuck at stoplights but really couldn't quite get myself out the door in time...LOVE ME ANWAY See the corndogs that your child ate from my child's bag at the church nursery...and LOVE ME ANYWAY (Because the rest of the week, I SWEAR, we are corn dog free...)

We're a mess. We need grace. ESPECIALLY my husband and kids.  BWAHAHAHA>  JK. This past weekend at the marriage retreat our church put on, the speaker talked about how we see our sin as tiny and everyone else (especially our spouse's) sin as GREAT.  This is true for me. I think it might be at the root of our judgement. So I will give grace.

GRACE=forgiveness (that we don't deserve)

It's the hardest thing to give.

Through God alone I can give grace to my family..my friends.

My sin is small you see :) 

Okay, so as we give each other grace.  and love each other well... Well, I just needed to add another picture, plus, I should just tell you... I'll show you my new job.  This is a picture for the bio I made for it. It's something that I have been a part of for a while. It's called "STROLLER STRONG MOMS". It's very little time commitment. When I say job, I mean 2-6 hours a week, FYI. :) I'll leave it at that and give you some more to look at tomorrow...or the next time I have a moment to breathe and type...could be months...

I've got so much to tell you about...so much on my mind... Created for Care Adoption Retreat...Moving...Life in Georgia...Life on a church staff....Eating healthy...working out....BALANCING LIFE... :) Blog world, I've missed you.