Receiving extra grace

In his sermon on Sunday, Pastor Paul mentioned asking for and getting just enough grace to get you through one day. If you've run out of grace, go to sleep! Does a mid-day nap count? :-)

Little did I know I'd need that kind of grace this week. Tobey's cold continues (I'm convinced he caught a 2nd one) and therefore so does his whininess. Eli is probably doing great for a 2 monther, but fitting his yet-to-settle "schedule" into my/Tobey's set ways gets to be difficult at times. I think things reached their height on Tuesday and Wednesday and I needed to ask for extra grace.

I was thinking of what that meant. Is that just a phrase for Christians to "pray with" to make themselves feel better? When I ask for extra grace, what does that really mean? Because what I really need was extra patience, extra time, extra sleep, all more concrete sounding than extra "grace". How will I know that I've received it -- a perfect day with no meltdowns for me or for Tobey? Gosh, now that I've blogged those questions down, I don't know the answers to them.

All I know is that Thursday and Friday were so much better than earlier days in the week. At the end of the day (i.e., when Tom comes home), I actually have energy, I have dinner prepped, I'm not exasperated by my children. And this even though 1) Tom came home later than usual on Thursday to pick up Tobey's new train table, 2) Tobey's woken up from his nap a littler earlier than he could 3) Eli was more high maintenance going down for naps both days which meant that 4) I didn't nap either day. Oh and 5) my shopping errands had mishaps (forgotten coupons, unavailable items, etc.).

I could explain it away by recalling that Tobey and Eli were cooperative on Thursday's outing, or that we finally had a playdate Friday, or that both days I got to chat on the phone with mom friends which always lifts my spirits. But those have all happened on other days where I'm still physically and mentally exhausted at the end of the day.

It's inexplicable but unmistakable that God gave me extra grace.