Stop Listening. Start Speaking.

Over the past several months, fierce battles have waged within me - a battle of my emotions. It's as if Happy, Content, Hopeful Katie and Sad, Lonely, Worried Katie are having a cat fight; and it's not a fun day when Happy Katie is lying on the floor, defeated. When I've struggled in this way, I've asked myself many questions, trying to pinpoint the problem. Is it postpartum depression? Winter blues? The stress of school and young children and a small house and the prospect of selling our condo in one of the worst real estate markets known to mankind? Are these areas that I have not given to the Lord? Do I need to repent of doubt and disbelief in God? Usually, the answer to both of those questions is "yes." But what I want to know even more, is, How can I trust God in the middle of that battle? What can I do to put my faith in Jesus when the house looks like thieves have ransacked it, the boys are fighting, laundry is multiplying like rabbits, my words have been sharp and piercing and I'm leaning over the kitchen sink trying to get a grip, with cereal crunching under my feet because my two-year-old helped himself that morning? What do I do then?

The moments when I have victory in redeeming this chaotic and ugly scenario are those when I stop listening to myself and start speaking. Preaching actually. I need to speak and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ's redeeming and rescuing work in my life to myself. The gospel is so much more than salvation from an eternity in hell. The gospel is salvation from my obscene and heinous sin every day. The gospel is victory, messy and painful at times, in the nitty gritty that I face in that moment when all hell seems to break loose in my crowded, loud, and exasperating world of motherhood. And that gospel is one word: Jesus. I love that name.

So, when I feel Sad Katie creeping up to my shoulder, ready to slap me in the face, I say to myself, (out loud, because I am astoundingly easily distracted) Jesus is faithful. Jesus is the same, yesterday, today, tomorrow. He is never overwhelmed; he will never check out because he can't handle any more. He is patient, loving and kind. Quick to hear, slow to anger.

Worried Katie might say, So, what's it to you, because, if you haven't noticed, you're pretty much the polar opposite of that.

Everything, because I am in Jesus. His righteousness is mine. He's ransomed me from this.

I usually have the problem of talking too much and listening to little. But when those tough moments come, what I need most is to speak the gospel of Jesus Christ to my weary and desperate self. The gospel doesn't remove all of the chaos and demands that my day holds. But it does rescue me from that impatient, angry, selfish and hopeless person that I am without it.