When you're upset, you upset what's really in you

Are you a parent? Do you ever lose it with your kids? Ann Voskamp writes about that today.

You don’t think about how you can open your mouth and let the sharp side of your tongue tear the innards out of a soul —- and there’s no way you can stuff the whole bloody mess back.

When you’re upset, you upset what’s really in you.

How can you have held the child that came from you as an ember of very heaven and then glare blind angry and stomp him right out? Who can look into a child and forget miracle?

Me — the amnesiac mother who forgets holy all the time.

How can grace get a hold of you when the past won’t let go of you? How do you leave a legacy different than the one you’ve been left?

And I kneel down and let go of his arm. And I hold his face. That’s what I should have done, done right at the beginning. What would happen in a world where anger was your flag to reach out and cup a face?

If you don’t fight for joy, it’s your children who lose.

What do I want my children to remember — my joy in clean floors, made beds and ironed shirts — or my joy of the Lord?

You will be most remembered — by what brought you most joy.

Joy isn’t an optional feature to the Christian life — it’s the vital feature of the Christian life.

Every ungracious moment means someone doesn’t understand grace.

And the boy crumbles into me and I hold onto him and a forgiveness I’ll never deserve and there’s a grace that can hold us, that can mold us, the way joy can bend you soft at all the joints.

And I murmur it into the thick of his hair, that even now He can still make us like Him.

The boy touches my cheek like a flag waving yes.