finding JOY

There was a man and a dog in a meadow herding sheep across a creek, and my friend and I sat on a hill and looked down on the shepherd, and I couldn't help but think about Jesus' sayings that the church was like family and the church was like a flock of sheep. If this is the case, then churches and families are messier than you image. Sometimes we are lead to believe families and churches are to be clean, and children and sheep are supposed to line up in a straight row and go exactly where the Shepherd tells them to go. But this is not so. And anybody who disagrees has never raised children or shepherded sheep. Shepherding, along with raising children, looks precisely like an extended mental breakdown.
by,
Donald Miller
intro to My Single Mom Life

My life has certainly been messy. God knew it was going to be messy, yet he finds joy in me. I am a mom. I knew it was going to be messy. I am committed to finding joy in my mess. My children deserve a joy-filled mom, regardless of how off my schedule is, how tired I am or how badly they are behaving.