I have been feeling bad as I haven't been here the past few days. When I started this blog, the intention was to come each and every day for 100 days to write. It seems though like even in that there has been a great need for grace.
The thing is, there has been no shortage in grace these past few days. In fact, there has been an abundance of it. So much so, in fact, that at times more than my exhaustion at the end of the day or lack of time, what kept me from posting was that I simply didn't have the words. I simply didn't feel like they could do what I had experienced justice, and I struggled to know how to share them in a way that seemed to give them the value that they deserved. As much as it would have been easy to simply stop writing this in having not met my goal with perfection and having missed days, I decided I didn't want to do that- because even though I didn't come here to share the grace these last days- the truth is there was a fullness and depth in the graces I experienced during that time that seems it would be a great disservice to me and any of you who have been reading it to simply stop sharing them. And so I am back here and ready to share again.
Tonight I snuck out to my front step to get a few minutes break from my uber crabby and clingy kids with a glass of wine and desire to do nothing but sit and be and escape. As I did so, I found myself pondering my last days and how full they have been. It is an extremely busy time as a Youth and Family Ministry leader getting all the things ready for the fall and fall programming. As I have had that to do, I had also taken on additional things like planning a brunch for our new Worship and Music Director, said I'd cover preaching a couple Sundays, signed up to volunteer at our church's homeless shelter we support, etc. All those things, while good, in addition to all of the normal life things I've had, have made for some very busy and full days and left little to no pockets for me to just have time well, with me! Alone! And not doing a zil things! And yet even in that, as I've looked back on these days and took in the weariness I'm feeling, I did so with gratitude. With an inner sense of God's presence in and through them, of his work in my life and of his peace.
I got some news the end of this past week that was difficult for me to receive. I had hoped for different words and a different outcome to a situation that was very important and carried a lot of weight, and that outcome did not come. Instead I was met with the very one I dreaded and feared the most. Yet, just as quickly as the news I ended up with came, so did God's wisdom, perspective and grace. And in that I reacted very differently than I thought or anticipated I would. I was ok when I didn't know if I would be ok. And the same has been true through all this busy-ness and all of the new things that have come up as of late. Just as I have been met with so much to do, with things that haven't gone well or as planned, with challenges and little pockets of down time or time for me- I've been equally met- or perhaps even more met, with God's presence, his love and mostly his grace. And that has brought in so many of these situations a peace that truly surpasses all understanding, and also a sense of pride in myself for the growth to be able to accept and hold those perspectives and to accept those gifts that God has given me.
I haven't been good about being here in recent days, but I've been good about being open to the gifts that God is offering me, and in offering myself some of those same gifts in return. As much as I want to get down on myself for not doing this as I planned or hoped, I think even that is an example of how things have gone for me as of late and yet- and yet- in it- is still grace. Is still the ability to come back after days away and to say that God is here and He is good and I am still here and seeking and experiencing his grace and my own towards me each day in ways beyond what I even expected.
This blog wasn't about simply writing. It was about experiencing and doing things differently. Doing life differently. Previously, I'd of likely buckled under the lack of perfection of keeping this every day and thrown in the towel. Quit. Considered it a failure. I'm not doing that. Today I am here because grace has been here. Is here. Will continue to be. And that's the beautiful thing about it. No matter how far we fall or fall short. No matter how undeserved or unearned. It is still here and freely given in love each and every day if only we choose to accept it. And frankly even if we don't! It's our loss.
Today- today I chose the gain. Because grace is worth it and new life and perspective are worth it.
Thanks be to God for that.
No comments:
Post a Comment