My Finite Understanding

Growing up is messy. I’ve been thinking lately about how all my kids have such a vast array of personalities & such different narratives of how they translate even the same experiences based on the lenses they see out of from earlier years in their lives. How my own fears might have hindered their growth or my own limited understanding might have shaped the very fabric of their lives. I’m so thankful that I know from my own story that God can use all the messes I’ve created or experienced & put them all to good use. Carrying the weight of 5 other human beings, or even 1 is too much to bear. I’m so thankful Jesus took that upon Himself at the cross.

I’ve been thinking about my own years of growing up, how I thought because I’ve always had a strong sense of what was right & wrong & always tried to do what was right, & how because Jesus is the only way, I thought my way to Jesus was the only way. It’s always been amazing to me that every single miracle Jesus did was different for each person & that if all His miracles were written down, there wouldn’t be enough books or libraries to contain them. While He expressed the same level of compassion for each, His formula was never the same so we wouldn’t get caught up in the actions but rather the heart behind them. My box of Jesus might have been bigger than others I was around growing up, but it was still the box of my own finite understanding I put the God who can’t be contained in all the universe in. How silly I was to treat myself like a god knowing both good & evil with such limited views or to think that I understood where others were coming from when I have yet to understand myself or God from my own small viewpoint. God has been helping me forgive myself lately for all the years of a religious, perfectionist mindset that expected more from myself than even He expected from me, for being angry that I didn’t know better earlier on in my journey & didn’t do better as a result. As I forgive myself, that same grace that He’s offered me to see myself in has been empowering me to forgive others as they truly might not have known the effects their messes created in my own life or others’ & it’s truly a beautiful thing.