So here we are; we made it to the end of the week. We may pulled out our hair a bit raised our voices a tad or a lot too much, but we made it. So all of us mommas let out a contented sigh and shake our heads at all the failures, the misses, and the wise among us repent of our sin. Let’s repent together?  The power of Christ is set in us, and we can by grace to do this mommying thing with some grace.

Don’t let Facebook and Instagram fool you — what you see isn’t necessarily false it’s just one cropped angle of a pretty complex picture. No one has it all sorted out. So I thought I would open up this fun fine fall day by sharing a few excerpts from The Gibson Chronicles… These are my confessions and if you read this and think “hm, I would never do that, say that…please don’t comment (laughing smile), thank you.”

Confession #1: Sometimes when I am just plain tired out and this could be 10am because we’ve got some early risers around these parts… Sometimes I hear the kids screaming for me at say 10am and I just sit there and pretend as though it isn’t happening. Sometimes it works but this is not a recommendation just a confession remember.

Confession #2: Sometimes if I am about to go off the deep end (don’t you even look at me like you don’t know what I mean…unless your kid can’t walk and talk yet, you know, warm smile) I will say in a deep firm voice…”Run!” I told some sweet girl friends this last week and they looked astonished and stated as much… Could happy-happy Regina do such a thing? Um, yes! We laughed together. Later I thought I can’t be the only one who has implored this tactic? And if you’re wondering what do I mean by run…here’s my simple definition– Run: flee as fast as you can away from me so I can get control of my mind again. It’s no surprise that the kids retreat to their room when I say this. Confessions people, just confessions.

Confession #3: Before people come over sometimes my sweet & beautiful children turn into terrifying little monsters, and because I am easily influenced so do I. I would hate for them to play all by themselves; we are all about some togetherness in this family, for better or for worse (hilarious smile). Let your imagination run wild… I bet you can create a pretty accurate scene in your head. It usually ends by me muttering sincere prayer to God, “Snarling at my kids is not hospitality change my heart.” And He is faithful; He answers. And if you’ve ever been our guest and it’s one of those times… you know I will shoot you straight we don’t hide it…usually (some things are too scary for visitors you know…grinning silly smile).

Confession #4: When you walk into our home it usually feels cozy and maybe a little put together? I take zilch credit. I inherited every last bit of that from my Grandma Mary. But laundry? There’s always messy laundry everywhere and most of it isn’t folded either. You can’t see it when you walk in and if you have a few cute baskets you can hide it, but it is always there.  And I have this reoccurring nightmare that one day all the laundry will take over the whole house, and we will all be buried alive. That may or may not ever happen. Just confessing, but if one day we all come up missing, please come dig us out (amused smile).

Even though I see the beauty in things, and I love that… I still have bad days. You too? Yeah we all do, but God gifts one person in this way and another in that, so we don’t implode on ourselves. We need some light and gladness for all the hard things. We need some encouragement. We need to laugh and know that in Jesus there is real tangible victory.

We don’t have to live in perpetual anxiety or fear, quick anger or impatience, discontentment or robbed of joy… We were never meant to live like that in Christ.

There’s more than all we see. More than Facebook , Instagram, and Pinterest there are these real tangible beautifully complex lives that we live and yeah we need to know we aren’t alone. But much more than that we need Jesus. We need His living comforting challenging Words to come grip us, and we need the Holy Spirit to change us. We can do more than just barely make it we can bear the fruit that comes from repentance. We can let the Gospel work itself deep into our souls and live in the absolute joy of The Lord. I believe that. And life will be still hard and ridden with trouble, but there’s a surpassing glory awaiting us that far outweighs all this. We could experience that glory… We could confess to our Father and come in closer to Him to see the grace…close enough to let it touch us and then maybe even change us. There’s all sorts of hope in jars of clay.

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:18

We are closing The Gibson Chronicles for today, but the confessions will keep on pouring as we learn to pray always to our Father who can change anything…everything. You can hope in that even when your space in time feels like it’s crumbling, because there’s a Savior who is always coming…. Our Lord Jesus who resurrects things, who creates beauty out of nothingness. He can do that in our lives, in our days, whole week, or more gone wrong. You can always believe that sister.  And as Ms. Beth always says This ends well.