Who cares?

Similar to my last posting about my house being messy... another concept I am coming to grips with recently has been that it just does not matter what other people say or think.  What matters is my relationship with my Heavenly Father, and what HE thinks about my choice of actions.  Or when it comes to my relationship with my husband or kids, again it matters what my Father says.  People pleasing has always been something I struggle with.  As I've grown older, and I have now gotten married and had a couple children, my life sometimes feels like a crazy mess... but it's the crazy mess that God is again working on and chiseling to make me into the woman, wife and mother that He wants me to be.  In the end, when I stand before my Maker, the voices and thoughts of others will not be what He is concerned with.  That's comforting!  Because I really do not have it altogether, and Keith & I are LEARNING every day what it means to be married and to parent our children into the little people God wants them to be.  

Life is messy, it's hard, it's filled with heartaches and disappointments.  But life is also filled with God's fingers weaving together a tapestry that I can't see the big picture of.  He knows the bigger picture- and it is that where I find contentment and peace.  As someone close once told me, Joseph, while he was in Potiphar's prison, could not see the bigger picture, he was alone, possibly cold and hungry, sitting in a prison cell for something that he did not do.  Yet, God, in his INFINITE wisdom, knew the end result.  So, for all the heartaches, hardships and disappointments, I know that God is working in our hearts to mold us and shape us into His Son.  Each of our journeys is different.  What God calls me to do, day by day and moment by moment, is to walk with Him, develop my friendship with Him and choose to walk in the truth that He has shown me.  Do I mess up?  ABSOLUTELY.  I fight with my husband, I yell at my kids, I am selfish, I choose my own ways so many times.  But in my moments of weakness... I find the strength of my Father, picking me up, showing me "Elyssa, stop trying to please everyone else, you are not perfect, you are going to stumble, but I am showing you more of myself through your mistakes and failures".  God's plans are not my plans, His thoughts are not my thoughts. So I am comforted with: 

"Have patience, God isn't finished yet"

Philippians 1:6 

An older picture of them, but I love their adorable smiles in it- and it makes me happy to look at!