Happy August // Summer Recap

hey there hi there ho there!

happy Monday, happy august!

I have a bit of encouragement for you as we begin a new month, so grab some coffee and take a minute.

August always feels like a new beginning to me. Perhaps it’s the years of school drilled into my head, August is a fresh new start. I find that moments throughout the year that feel like that are so helpful and renewing. It is such a beautiful thing to be reminded that we can try again, isn’t it? To know that whatever failures we have tied to our ankles, dragging around as we go about our day, can be let go and we can try again.

This week we are painting our kitchen and our living room, and it’s placed such a lovely picture in my mind. The process of covering flaws, dents, scratches, bumps, holes, and making new once more with each brush stroke. You can see where pictures have been hung a thousand times, and where furniture banged into the wall just a little too hard. You can see where years of fingers have run over a door frame leaving oily stains. Taking a room that was once drab, old, and less than beautiful and transforming it into a space that feels welcoming, fresh, and inviting. How lovely! Filling in those holes and dings with putty and wiping down the stains, cleaning the dirt of the base boards, and carefully laying a new, beautiful color over it all so that the mistakes and age no longer show.

Sometimes I feel like that drab, old, less than beautiful room. I look at myself and see the dents in my personality, the scratches in my character, and the bumps in my person. I think “ugh, I just KEEP trying and I keep failing! Surely by now the patience has run out and the love has dried up. Surely that was my last chance, and I BLEW it.” I see the holes in my heart where I’ve tried to hang pictures of perfection and instead they’ve come crashing down when the drywall gives. I see where people and words have dinged my walls and instead of being filled with more love, forgiveness, and gentleness, bitterness was squeezed into the dents like an ugly caulk, leaving striking bumps as evidence. I can see where I’ve been overwhelmed with the old self, the constant sin and failure, and I’ve quickly painted over it all with a quick verse or two, not caring to change the little details and tape of the edges so as to not ruin the window.

Sometimes the way I view myself is so discouraging. Sometimes the sin is SO evident and my “renovation budget” is too small to make the changes. I feel incapable of making the once ugly room of my heart fresh and new and beautiful again.

Does that sound familiar? Does that resonate with you?

I am incapable. I cannot change myself. I cannot make myself new. It just isn’t possible. I need grace. I need help.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 1 Peter 5 :10

We have a loving merciful God awaiting to renovate our hearts, waiting to paint each room of our souls with His grace! If you are feeling like you need a fresh start, a new coat of paint, you can know that Christ himself will restore you. He will confirm you. He will strengthen you. He will establish you.

Start this month fresh, renew you Spirit in the Word of the Lord, and allow Him to restore you. He is a God of everlasting love and mercy, and no amount of failures and falling will keep you from Him.

talk soon.