Long days

The quote "The days are long but the years are short" pulls at my heart-strings every time.

But what do you do with those long days? With the child who is just plain difficult? With the messes that never cease and the arguing that never ends? What do you do with the laundry that piles up and the bills that keep coming in? What do you do with the needs that never seem to be fully met - the kiddos' or your own?

It would be so nice if life came with an easy button. A button to push on those extra long days to simply make whatever is going wrong, right. God could have made life work like that. Sometimes knowing that can send me into a tailspin. Why didn't He just make life easier?

The only answer is: He desires a relationship with us. He wants us to call upon His name, to reach out to the only one who knows how long and hard our days can be.

Meredith is the person that I call and say, "Can I just talk to you for a minute? Everything that could go wrong today, has." I don't call her expecting an answer to my problems. I call her because she is there. She's my friend, and I know that nothing I say will shock her, make her think less of me, or even bother her. We have a relationship. We are connected in friendship.

And that's only a taste of what we can have with our Heavenly Father. A connection where He will always be there. Nothing I do or confess will shock Him or make Him think less of me. Nothing I ever do will change His love for me. It's that Grace that gets me through the long days.

Through His grace, I can look at the cup of sticky chocolate milk that has spilled down the entire refrigerator and understand that these days are short. While I won't necessarily miss wiping down every.single.item in the fridge as food sits on the dinner table getting cold, I can take a deep breath and know that I will miss those sweet little hands that sat the milk in the fridge.

But I only gain that perspective by running to the One who calls me by name. Running to Him with my own sticky hands and tear-stained face knowing that our relationship is enough.
The days do get long, but His grace lasts much longer.