For many months now as the Lord has been unraveling me before Him, I have had many painful and beautiful moments. Many times in a particularly tough revelation of just how broken I am God gives me a glimpse of His purpose in all of this and where He is headed with me. He has a plan and I trust Him. I may not like it, but I trust Him. It may hurt, but I want His best for me.

Each and every day, moment by moment I choose to depend on Him and trust Him for the results He desires. There is no formula. I have to resist the urge to manufacture a plan and instead just rest (love that word) in Him knowing that He has got this. Knowing that this is a process, likely until I go Home and am forever in His presence.

But…the hardest thing is recognizing some of the fruit, fruit of death from all those years of living out of my flesh.

“For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.” Romans 7:5

While I busily built my little kingdom of the flesh, I was raising three beautiful, unsuspecting daughters. Three precious gifts from God. Entrusted into my care, into my stewardship. They have been front row, center for all of my shenanigans – performing for acceptance; building relationships based on other people needing me; pretending I didn’t have any needs; trying hard to be perfect; following all the rules, and then making up more rules for good measure; being at church every time the doors were open trying to make myself good enough for God; sometimes just over packing my schedule so that I was too busy to sit and listen to the Father because I was afraid of what He would say to me.

All along the way I was planting seeds in their little hearts that started to take root. I watered them with my expectations. I fertilized them with the lie that I had to “do” in order to “be”. I modeled how to do it all exactly right and if I didn’t do it right it wasn’t good enough for God. I desperately want my repentance to take me back to their beginning. To rewind the film of their lives and edit out me and splice in God and His grace. I want to undo all of my doings that will impact generations to come.

As all of this is swirling around in my heart and I grieve over the death fruit not only in my life but in my relationships, I feel overwhelmed. I feel heavy. I feel responsible. Responsible is a familiar place for me. A crippling place. It puts me back at the center of things.

Lying awake in the middle of the night thinking hard on this ugliness, I hear it whispered in my spirit, “All is grace.” Over and over again, “All is grace.” I am learning to trust God to heal me, but what about my girls? Aren’t I responsible for cleaning up the mother messes I made? And I hear, “All is grace.”

The thing about repentance is that once I do it, once I confess and turn from sin, the responsibility shifts to its rightful Owner. Now in His infinite grace and endless love for my girls, I get the opportunity to see Him “work all things together for their good.” To watch them find their way in Him and walk out their own journey to healing and wholeness. The same way all of my mess drove me to Him, all of their mess (including the fruit of my flesh) will lead them to Him. As they journey with Him, as He untangles the lies for them they will fully unravel grace for themselves. All. Is. Grace.