Everyone receives enough grace from God to admit, “I am messed up and need help” and to, then, cooperate with that help!

As a severe co-dependent, I love to let everyone off the hook. If I were the judge in the last day, I would go up to the last person in line and say “why did you do all those bad things?” When they gave me a long spiel about their tough childhood, the bad examples of their society, how they have done the best they could considering, their parents and siblings and life stress, their struggle with physical illness, how they were born too anxious, angry, lustful etc. etc. I would probably let them off the hook. Then I would go to their parents and say. “Why did you raise that poor person that way?” Of course they would start in with the excuses.

I heard a great quote the other day, “The only one who believes an excuse is the one making it.” And me of course and a few other co-dependents.

I’m sure it won’t be that way in the judgment but each man and woman will give account for what they did with the reality they faced. No it isn’t my job to be strong and overcome, but IS my job: 1. to admit that I am messed up and  I come from a people that are messed up. Isaiah 6:5   2. That I can’t fix myself or even see how messed up I am. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9    3. To examine myself I Corinthians 11:28 I ask for feedback, deeply consider feedback, reward feedback and benefit from feedback. Proverbs 9:8 Rebuke a wise man and he will love thee.

Adam and Eve started the mess with excuses and blame and we have kept up the pattern. If I admit that I am so messed up that I can’t even see how badly or in what ways and ask God to “search my heart and know my ways and lead me in new paths.” Psalms 139:23; then God will help me grow and make up for my trouble seeing.

I was a transitional generation. I was not raised by my parents or anyone for that matter. So when I came to try to parent my children I had no clue, but I knew that I had no clue and was open to the Holy Spirit, the Word of God and friends and even my children in trying to do the job. I could have  fallen back on the tired old “I did the best I could” or instead go for “I did the best that I and my feedback team, with God’s help could.” Sometimes it may seem unfair to try to give what you never received but this world has little to do with fairness, (would you REALLY want to get what you REALLY deserve?) And I did want to let God give my family the best that he could given my limitations.