Jesus Came to Serve

The day starts, today for instance- wet beds and fussy kiddos.  Muddy dog paws and literally spilt milk.  Leaky faucets, no time for a shower.  Behavior issues and eating issues.  Running late for doctor appointments.  Crappy doctor appointments.  Screaming and tantruming kids- and the loneliness that comes from no one understanding. Runny noses and scraped knees.  More anger and more fear.  More pain in some of my children that wrecks me and ruins me and leaves me crying.  A husband home late and car repairs. A grocery list I didn't complete.  Dinner that never got made. Winter decorations still on my mantle.  More problems and more issues that run deeper and thicker than I could ever put on paper. 

I begin to feel lost again.  I feel like a failure.  I feel a mess and I want to hide from it all.  I don't know how to redeem the day and the messes.  I find myself longing for the things of this world.  A maid, a new job, kids that don't have handicaps and medical issues, a shower and makeup, and the spiral begins.  I am looking for my identity in places that it shouldn't be and I am upset when I can't find it there.

It's 8:30 at night and the kids need to get to bed.  Kenney and I stare at each other, and I see the brokenness he sees. It's the week of Easter.  Every single night we pray with our children.  We pray they see Jesus as glorious and holy.  We pray they believe and accept Jesus as their savior.  We pray they see themselves in need of a savior and we pray they see Jesus as their everything.  Yet, these littles, they look to us to see that, and when I look in the mirror, do I see Jesus?

So we gather in the middle of the kitchen floor.  In the last moments of the day I confess my sins.  I tell them all I love them.  That I yelled when I shouldn't and  I complained when I had so much to be thankful for. I used words that were not loving and I lived selfishly.  I tell them all I am sorry.  We talk about Jesus forgiving me of my sins, and how much I need, and my children all need a savior. 

I tell them mommy can't be a good mommy without Jesus.  Only Jesus can make me a good mommy, and only Jesus can make them good sons and daughters.  Because there is only one good and perfect man, and His name is Jesus.  I tell them, if we believe, we get Jesus- we get His good and perfect record as our own. We get grace. A couple of the older ones start to think about that. 

We didn't do a passover dinner, as much as in my mind I wished we could have.  (My mom came over and made us some Mexican tortillas) We didn't do Lenten devotions as I wished we would have.  We didn't do Easter crafts and empty tombs to celebrate His death and Resurrection.  We messed up a lot.

But tonight, we stopped everything rolled up each others pant legs and removed our socks and read together:

 

John 13:4-5 So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.

 

 

John 13:12-17 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.  If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.  For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

Every last one of us washed each other's feet.  It was all I had in me to keep from crying the entire time.  Jesus came to serve.  And He served perfectly, without sin.  Washing each others feet made that so clear and obvious. 

The day has been redeemed.  All my failures, all of my sin, it's washed away.  I believe and claim the One Perfect Servant as my Savior.   The sorrow that seems to consume so much of our days, can still be met with rejoicing!  For in Christ, we have everything.  In Christ we are full of an infinite supply of everything we need.  In that fullness, at the end of the day, we can serve, and wash each others feet. We will go to sleep tonight resting in the knowledge of His grace, and the peace that it brings to our weary hearts.

  2 Corinthians 6: 3...10 In everything we do, we show that we are true ministers of God....as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.