Cry Baby

I've been sort of a mess lately. I feel like my emotions are just right under the surface. Not in a PMS way, or even in a bad way necessarily. And even though I'm the girl that cries at the Pampers commercial {although seriously, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to cry at their new one. You know the one with the premie, and then the older Mom holding a newborn and it says "when they come too early, or years too late..." melts me like butter} this is different. I guess I have had some hurts and emotional decisions lately, but overall, I don't feel sad, just raw, exposed ~ like the layers of my heart are being peeled back. This usually happens to me when I'm heading for change, and even though there is a lot of instability in our life right now, the change I see coming is more in my heart. I feel like God is asking more of me, maybe requiring more of me is a better word. And I hope that's the reason for all the tears! I think I've cried  more this month than in the past 2 years combined! There is a verse that says "to whom much is given, much is required." And I have so much...
They were doing baptisms at church on Sunday; the Christian faith follows Jesus' example ~ coming to a concious point of decision about a relationship with God, and wanting to show an outward expression of the change in your heart. You go under the water {symbolizing the grave} the "old" man, and come up "new", a picture of dying to your old life and starting fresh. So a few people were baptised and it was so sweet, and then this girl, I'd say about 12 years old, went up to be baptised. They prayed with her, she got dunked, and came up beaming and it was really precious. And I just started bawling. It was the weirdest thing, but I'm getting used to it at this point because it keeps happening to me! So I'm crying and crying and I'm sure everyone thought I was her Mom because I was so emotional, only I was in the back so that gave me away as just the crazy, crying lady. I was picturing our kids making that choice someday, hoping they will, hoping I am sufficient to point the way to what matters most. And God just whispered to my heart "you can't give away what you don't have..." And I can't. I can't expect my kids to love Jesus by osmosis, I have to show them. Sure they will make their own decisions at some point, but I am incredibly responsible for this in so many ways. Yet under this wave of emotion and the heaviness of this responsibility, I know I can find peace in the fact that I don't have to muster up perfection. I am so far from that. I truly mean this when I say that I am a complete and utter failure in so many ways, on so many days. But thank the Lord it doesn't depend on me. Yet that is usually where I get stuck, focusing on figuring out how to do it "better" when God has to capture my heart, and draw me toward Him. He always has to remind me that I can't do better on my own. It seems the harder I try, the more I fail, and that's because I am relying on myself to accomplish something supernatural. I read the book unPlanned by Abby Johnson and it was an incredible, I couldn't put it down and read it in one night. And one sentence stuck with me more than anything else she said. "I was living an unexamined life, full  of inconsistencies." That is exactly who I don't want to be, someone who doesn't take a close, honest look inside, someone who is inconsistent in their faith. I can't love well, parent well, be a good wife, a good friend, daughter or sister without His help. So I will keep trying to keep my eyes on Him, although the view is kinda fuzzy through all these tears.