{"id":120,"date":"2014-04-28T19:31:38","date_gmt":"2014-04-28T19:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/notsoshortterm.com\/?p=120"},"modified":"2014-04-28T19:31:38","modified_gmt":"2014-04-28T19:31:38","slug":"his-mercies-are-new-every-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/notsoshortterm.com\/?p=120","title":{"rendered":"His mercies are new every morning."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How thankful I am for days.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s an odd thought, but it hit me today with such power and relevance that I couldn&#8217;t help but express it here.\u00a0 W and I had a bit of a rocky day together.\u00a0 His sleep schedule was thrown off last night, which trickled into today, which wrought havoc from sun up to sunset.<\/p>\n<p>We limped through this day and fought for moments of joy.\u00a0\u00a0 I was exhausted, he was exhausted, and frustrations loomed around every corner.\u00a0 My sleepy baby is prone to falls and he had many.\u00a0 Trying to keep a hand on him at all times was futile, since he is now a &#8220;walker&#8221; and &#8220;doesn&#8217;t need my help.&#8221;\u00a0 When a much-needed nap turned into an hour long rebellion, my patience wore thin.\u00a0 It had been a day and I was over it.\u00a0 I <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">wanted<\/span> to show him the grace and love of Christ, but what he got when I lifted him from his crib was a grumpy mama.\u00a0 I prayed out loud, for his sake and for mine, that God would redeem a day that had clearly derailed.<\/p>\n<p>We made it.\u00a0 Minute by minute, hour by hour, we trudged through our challenges and made the most of our moments.\u00a0\u00a0 Near the end of the day, we took a walk to the pond and chatted together while he chased the ducks.\u00a0 Just before we started the journey for home, he plopped down in the grass and excitedly squealed &#8220;DOH!!&#8221; which is his word for flowers.\u00a0 I laughed.<\/p>\n<p>He was sitting in a patch of weeds.<\/p>\n<p>I was just before redirecting him to a beautiful azalea bush just a few steps away when I saw it.\u00a0 Sure enough, out of the hideous tangle of overgrown and unwanted plants, a darling little flower emerged, its petals reaching for the sun.\u00a0 We sat there, my boy and I, for several minutes enjoying the flowers amid the weeds and I was reminded that while beauty is always present, sometimes we have to work a bit harder to find it.<\/p>\n<p>Grateful that God had redeemed the day, I enjoyed the second half much more than the first.\u00a0 Our evening wasn&#8217;t without incident&#8211;there was still a toe to be stubbed, a bath meltdown to be had, and a tumble to be taken while feeding the puppers&#8211;but I found comfort in the awareness that this too shall pass.\u00a0 How incredible&#8230;an idea that is a bitter pill to swallow in moments of joy, had the capability to make my frustrating moments palatable.<\/p>\n<p>Once my little lion was sleeping soundly, I plopped on the couch and exhaled.\u00a0 I thought about how it wasn&#8217;t my best day, nor was it William&#8217;s, and asked God to forgive me for all of the ways I blew it.\u00a0 With those thoughts buzzing in my brain, I was reminded of this scripture:<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"en-NIV-20377\" class=\"text Lam-3-22\"><sup class=\"versenum\">22\u00a0<\/sup>Because of the <span class=\"small-caps\" style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">Lord<\/span>\u2019s great love we are not consumed,<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"indent-1\"><span class=\"indent-1-breaks\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"text Lam-3-22\">for his compassions never fail.<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span id=\"en-NIV-20378\" class=\"text Lam-3-23\"><sup class=\"versenum\">23\u00a0<\/sup>They are new every morning;<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"indent-1\"><span class=\"indent-1-breaks\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"text Lam-3-23\">great is your faithfulness.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Lamentations 3:22-23<\/p>\n<p>I was so thankful that we would be able to turn the page from this day&#8230;go to sleep and wake up with a whole new opportunity to love and live the abundant life God offers.\u00a0 Certain I had used up all of my allotted &#8220;mercies&#8221; for the day, I was thankful to get a whole new batch in the morning.\u00a0 ;0)<\/p>\n<p>Thank You God for days&#8230;for the ones that make us smile and the ones that make us cringe.\u00a0 Thank you for loving us through our messes and giving us a chance every 24 hours to start again.\u00a0 Thank You for days&#8230;and for the grace You pour out according to our many needs on every. single. one of them.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How thankful I am for days. It&#8217;s an odd thought, but it hit me today with such power and relevance that I couldn&#8217;t help but express it here.\u00a0 W and I had a bit of a rocky day together.\u00a0 His sleep schedule was thrown off last night, which trickled into today, which wrought havoc from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,14],"tags":[9,16,17,11],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jamees-musings","category-parenting","tag-faith","tag-gratitude","tag-letters-to-william","tag-motherhood"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/notsoshortterm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/notsoshortterm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/notsoshortterm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notsoshortterm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notsoshortterm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/notsoshortterm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126,"href":"https:\/\/notsoshortterm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions\/126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/notsoshortterm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notsoshortterm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notsoshortterm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}