Thursday, May 21, 2020

Grace Filled

What a time of reflection this ‘sheltering at home’ is proving to be!
Now this is coming from a person who lives much of the time ruminating on a normal day!
What it means is just take all that usual thinking, meditating and reflecting and expand it exponentially!
Oof! That’s a lot of thoughts swirling around in this head!

So what have I been thinking about?
If I had to condense it all down to one word it would be GRACE. 

Grace. 
Unmerited favor.
It’s what has carried me every day of my life. 
Yes, carried by grace even before I learned about grace or was intimately connected with the Giver of grace. 

Grace is a manifestation of His love. 
Out of such an immeasurable love grace flows. 
That great love that knows no limits. 
That Is unhindered by all that would get in the way. 

Our brokenness. 
Character defects. 
Sin. 
Pain. 
Wounds. 
Scars. 
None of it is a hindrance to our God extending grace to us.   

So how has that grace show itself in my life?

It would take volumes to tell of it all. 
That I am here, alive and thriving and so is my family is evidence enough of a lifetime of His Grace.

In this posting I ’d like to focus on the evidence that presents itself in this current time and situation.

Grace is woven through all of life...from the simplest little detail to the very big. 

Waking each morning is grace.

Hearing the birds singing is grace.

Sitting with Papa journaling my thoughts and discovering His thoughts is grace.

The knowledge and experience of His love is grace

The ability and pleasure of taking a walk in His glorious creation is grace.

Having people in my life to love and receiving love in return is grace.

Finding purpose is grace.

That inner voice (His Spirit) to guide is grace.

Our God is so very gracious! He is Present in all our moments.
That is grace!

His grace is evident in all the details of my life.
Even and especially the normal life situations.

I ordered a small kitchen island/cart.
Why I thought it would arrive already assembled I don’t know.
Well, of course, it arrived in many pieces. Quite a few pieces!

I knew I was looking at a project. Sigh.
First, I took an inventory, in which I discovered two damaged pieces.  Both belonged to a drawer.
Time to call the company. Sigh.

They will ship replacements.
Okay back to the project. Sigh.

Now lay out all the parts in order of assembly. Sigh.
Now put it together. Sigh.
After a couple of hours of connecting piece after piece I had it assembled.
Now to put the one good drawer in place!

No matter what I did it wouldn’t go. One side kept falling out of the track. Sigh.
It was later evening and time to leave it for the next day.  I was tired.
I walked away, made myself a cup of tea and headed to my chair to enjoy my current read for a bit.

On the way to my chair I stopped to close a window, as the evening was cooling down.
The window wouldn’t close. A two inch gap was where it stopped.  Sigh.
I tried opening it wide and even folding it in as if to clean it before trying to close it.
Nope. Sigh.

So I pulled the shade down and left the window as is and picked up my book.

The whole evening was grace filled.
Without grace this lady would have done more than sighed!
It wouldn’t have been pretty!
The grace was His peace in the midst of one of those bumps life can bring you.

The next morning after spending time with Papa He helped me close the window (I was pushing too far up before trying to close it).
Then in examining the drawer I discovered the manufacturer had put the track on backwards!
In a very short time both issues were resolved. Pure grace!

I am learning to trust His grace for each day.  By recognizing my weakness and often powerlessness His grace is free to flow and
it opens me up to discovering even more grace!

This reminds me of a passage of Scripture.

“but He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you [My lovingkindness and My mercy are more than enough—always available—regardless of the situation]; for [My] power is being perfected [and is completed and shows itself most effectively] in [your] weakness.” Therefore, I will all the more gladly boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ [may completely enfold me and] may dwell in me.”
‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭12:9‬ ‭AMP‬‬

AMEN!

I came across a quote from Maya Angelou that reflects a perfect attitude to greet every new day With when we know it will be grace-filled. 

“This is a wonderful day, I’ve never seen this one before!” 


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