Picture this:

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you’re stirring soup in a pot on the stove. The phone rings and you turn to answer it; your sleeve catches the handle of the pot and pulls it off the burner and onto the floor, splashing hot soup on you, the floor, everywhere in reach.

What’s your reaction?

Mine is not lovely and pure. My reaction would start something like “S*#%!

Sorry but true.

Grace is not my go to. Is it yours? I want to know how you’ve arrived there. I’m truly curious what life would be like if we consistently showed ourselves grace in the face of making mistakes.

Changing our reactions from harsh criticism to thoughtful, considerate responses does not happen overnight. If you’re a parent and you’re wrestling with this when your littles make their learning mistakes your reaction/response matters even more since you’re setting the stage for their internal dialogue as well.

      Sorry for the reality check but it’s the truth.

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How do we move from criticism to grace?

A shift of mindset and perspective.

One of my favorite passages of scripture is found in Romans 12:1-2. I’ve memorized it because it reminds me of whose work this really is:

I urge you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

I memorized it in the New American Standard version. One year when I was meditating on this passage five words stood out to me that I had read, memorized, but not taken in. By the mercies of God. Bam! The change that I desired for my mind, heart and body is available by the mercies of God. Not by my trying harder. Not by my doing. By the mercies of God.

Here is the Mystery: if we surrender our illusion of control to God and ask Him to lead and guide us, teaching us moment by moment how to respond to the movement of Holy Spirit within us, by the mercies of God our minds are made new. Change is possible. With God’s guidance and empowering.

When I came across this passage in The Message my mind was comforted even more:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

I’m learning to let go of the unrealistic expectations, to turn down the harsh inner critic voice and lean in toward Jesus who invites us to come to Him and learn from Him watching how He does it. (Matthew 11:28-30 the Message)

What will it be like?

From the little I’ve experienced I can say Freeing! Joyful! Lighthearted!

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Want to join me?

Action step: read Romans 12:1-2 in your favorite version of the Bible. Now read it in The Message (copied and pasted above) Capture your response to those words through writing, art or some other creative expression. Please share!