But I feel like I need to write this morning because I need to share my heart. Compared to about 99% of the world, most of my life has been easy. If I've taken the time to look, I've been able to see God's grace stamped all over it. He was gracious to give me a wonderful husband, provider for our family, hard worker, loving father. He was gracious to give me six precious blessings from heaven. He was gracious to give me wonderful parents and then to plan for me to marry into a wonderful family as well. All these things are things that are very easily taken for granted and forgotten that they are all because of God's grace--it didn't have to be so.
These things haven't changed. I'm still benefitting from the graciousness of God through all these things. But I'm beginning to understand that God's grace doesn't always come in the nice, beautiful things that we see in our lives. I'm digging for grace these days. God's grace isn't always easy to see or recognize.
You know that wonderful husband that God was so gracious to give me....well, he has some faults to. :) I won't go into in detail here because of my respect and honor for him. But sometimes it's hard to see how those faults are "gracious" for me. But they are. There's another little thing that God does throughout our lives that shows his grace. It's a little word called sanctification. He is gracious enough to use those around us that we love (and sometimes those that we don't even know) to do this.
"And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." ~Phil 1:6Right now he's using a lot of things in my life to show me his grace and "bring me to completion." I'm digging for those things, believe me. I'm claiming his grace in the middle of the night when my precious little 4 and 7 year old blessings have woken me up for the 3rd, 4th, 5th time--in my bed, out of my bed, back in my bed, crying and waking the baby.....yes, sometimes it's hard to find the grace in these situations--so I'm digging!
He is gracious when I get to the DMV to take my son to get his learner's license on his 15th birthday only to be told that I had to have a "school enrollment" form. (The kids are still enrolled in FL right now.) After my initial *government stay out of my business* rant, I realized that here I was right in the middle of God's grace as well. With my laid back attitude, I might have missed out on getting him into the umbrella school that we wanted.
He is gracious when I have to be creative to figure out how to make the grocery budget stretch enough to make it through the week. I haven't figured out all the grace in that one yet. :) But I know it's there. I really can figure out how, somewhere in my mind, I just don't want to have to think about it because it seems to be too much work. Once again....lots of sanctification!
So grace is overflowing. It's overflowing when I don't have the money for a cleaning lady (which, in my opinion, I really could use) because it gives me a chance to serve my family and teach my children how to care for our home and be in service as well. It's overflowing when I can't go to church and worship (and fellowship) for the 3rd or 4th week in a row because I get to sit at home with one or two children and focus on them--being together in some quality time alone for a couple of hours. It's overflowing when I'm woken up over and over in the night because I get to practice my own grace giving (and obviously I still need practice on that one because this continues to happen every night!)
I'm digging for grace in the everyday--in the mundane and sometimes the "pain in the butt" stuff that happens.
Lord, help me to see you and your grace in everything. Thank you for working in the everyday stuff to sanctify me and show yourself to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment