Category: Grace

Where Greatness Lies

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I Chronicles 16: 10-11, “Glory ye in his holy name: let the heart of them rejoice that seek the LORD. Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his face continually.”

The holidays are here along with the hustle and bustle, cleaning up after Thanksgiving leftovers, extra things on our to-do list, shopping, decorating for Christmas, and planning holiday activities. It is a lot to think about and we can quickly feel overwhelmed. We want the Christmas season to be great, but if we wear ourselves out by doing too much, we are left with no strength and are weary by the end of the holidays. Greatness in the season does not have to mean being strong for each and every activity that comes along. Strength lies in knowing when to say, “Yes” and what needs to be, “Not this year”. Either way, being able to rejoice in our hearts because we made the right decision is quite rewarding. The right use of strength is seeking God’s glory in everything.

Maybe you do have the time and energy to fit as many activities in as possible. But if you are in the camp of , “It’s been a rough year. I want to do a few fun things with family/friends/church, and the rest of the time watch Hallmark movies in my fuzzy socks and comfy pajamas sipping a peppermint mocha. I want to read a really good book tucked under a warm blanket…”, that is OK too. If you would love to have people over, but do not want complicated, homemade soup simmering in a crockpot all day and a loaf of homemade or bakery bread is one solution for a low stress get-together meal. Or invite your guests to bring their favorite ‘potluck’ dishes to share. Greatness can be found in the ordinary. After all, Jesus ministered to thousands with every-day fish and bread!

It is easy to get caught up in what everyone else is doing and feel pulled along. Peer pressure does not happen only with the young, but it also happens in our lives as busy adults. The right use of strength is doing what is best for your family, even if it means simplifying by doing less and even if it means a get-together over coffee after the holidays and hustle and bustle.  Whatever choice we decide to make, let’s seek the Lord’s wisdom first and do everything in honor of Him. Bringing glory to God will not happen if we feel overpowered by activity lists and lose the wonder and magnificence of the Christmas season. When we seek His strength, we preserve our own.  

“Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength.”

I’m Learning

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On the weekends, I try to make enough breakfast on Saturday to be Sunday morning breakfast as well. I double the recipe for waffles so that Sunday morning, all we need to do is cook sausage links and reheat the waffles. Last Saturday, I was on a time crunch because my dad and I had wanted to go to WalMart before the crazy traffic started. I asked my 22-year-old son to help finish making the waffles so I could shower and get dressed before breakfast. He was willing to help but had never manned a waffle iron before. I showed him about how much batter to put in the machine and told him to watch the light. I instructed that when the light clicked off, the waffle should be done. “Easy enough”, I thought, and left it to his available hands. After I showered, I called down to him from upstairs to check how he was doing. “I’m learning”, he replied. When I was dressed and ready, I walked in the kitchen to a mess on the kitchen counter. Batter was spilled as he had put too much batter in the waffle iron several times. Not only was it over the sides of the waffle iron, but also on the counter. However, he had successfully cooked all of the batter for waffles and had started working on cleaning up everything.

There was no complaining. He did not stress that he was making a mess. He simply stated that he was learning.

To Learn:  to gain or acquire knowledge of or skill in (something) by study, experience, or being taught; commit to memory; become aware of (something) by information or from observation

Learning is acquiring, studying, experiencing, memorizing, observing. It is a process. And the process is messy at times. Emotionally. Physically. Spiritually. I began to think about just life in general and what my response is to different situations that come my way. If you have taught children, you know we have to let go to let them learn.  Let them make a mess and figure things out under our watchful eyes. While we may show patience to children, it is difficult to be patient with ourselves. But God our Heavenly Father is ever watchful, ever patient, never leaving us to fend for ourselves. He gives us instructions in the Bible on how to live. He knows that making mistakes and learning we can trust Him is necessary. It is vital in learning to love, to forgive, to show grace to ourselves and to others. For the times we just cannot seem to ‘get it right’, “I’m learning” is a great point of view.

I am learning to show myself grace when I am tired and let the to-do list alone.

I am learning to accept help.

I am learning that perfectionism stifles.

I am learning that it is OK that our path in life has had many bends in the road and our journey does not look like anyone else’s.

I am learning that through grief, through disappointments, I will be OK as long as I take one breath at a time and trust God to get me through ‘this moment’.

I am learning my gifts, my strong attributes, my weaknesses, and it is a journey. I could scold myself thinking I should know all this already at my age. I have a choice between stressing over ‘not getting it right’ or making progress by acknowledging that as long as there is life, there is more to learn.

It is the end of the year and the new year will be here before we know it. Let’s not choose stress and guilt to be our anthem in 2019. Let’s pick up where we left off, clean up what needs to be cleaned up, and count the experiences in 2018 as a lesson learned.  Let’s choose life.

Life is learning. And learning is life.

The Balance of Grace

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HOLD ON when you are sorting out your wounds and hopes.

HOLD ON when anxiety and worry knock on your door and tears can no longer be held back.

HOLD ON when the transition between grief and healing changes you and it feels like a new person is emerging.

HOLD ON because there are people who believe in you. There is good in this world because God is good. We will not always suffer. There is always dark and light to everyone’s story; the “balance of grace”, I read once. We can only hold on with both hands to one thing at a time. Either we will hold on to the branch of faith and hope and love and God and grace and all that entails and find mercy, healing, and life, or hold on to that which keeps us down in despair which will eventually silence our spirit.

What do we want? How do we want to live? What do we want our future to look like? All questions I ask myself when evaluating a troubling situation. It gives me a focal point. It gives me perspective on what I want to hold to and what I need to let go of.

Hebrews 10: 23, “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)”.

Embrace the Grace

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I will choose to listen to the wise who build and turn away from the critics who break.

I will choose to focus on faith in God and separate from those centered on faults and flaws.

I will choose to do the job God gave me and be untroubled about “keeping up” with anyone else.

I will choose to evaluate my worthiness by using God’s Word as my foundation and bypass the weighing measures of man.

I will choose to let go of the misconceptions, the broken trust, the self-imposed and others-imposed boundaries to embrace the grace. “Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” – Hebrews 12:1b

Proverbs 3:31, “Envy not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways.”

Choose wisely.

Every Day A Gift

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When I see what I feel are flaws in the morning mirror, let the words of my mouth about myself speak through grace lest I doubt and mock God’s creation in me.

When I see stretch marks, birthmarks, and scars as I dress for the day, let the meditation of my heart consider the story they have to tell. A story of a soul that has experienced life, every day a gift.

Psalm 19:14, “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.”

On the Hunt

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I am still looking for those “stray gifts” I have mentioned in a few posts. I wonder each morning what I will see, what will grab my attention. I feel that if God brings my focus to something specific, He is asking me, “Do you see?” I answer with a resounding “Yes” when I physically stop to observe.

I live in a city where everyone always seems to be in a hurry. Confession: I think it is hilarious when someone passes me (speeding, of course) and ends up at the same red light as I do. Is that mean? Not very grace-full, is it?  I always feel ‘pushed around’ when driving around town. I am a rule follower by nature and I have never received a speeding ticket. I think I might cry if I did! I did get a ticket for running a red light once. In my defense, I was behind a big truck and didn’t see the traffic light change until too late. The ticket came in the mail, so I was able to grieve at home in peace instead of in front of a police officer on the side of the road. I have become more aware of my need for these stray gifts in my day. They remind me to slow down. Just because everyone else seems to be going at a frantic pace, that doesn’t mean I have to be.  The unexpected gifts bring perspective. They bring focus to the important, to the beautiful. And I am sure it lowers my blood pressure. Quite sure.

I enjoy being on the hunt for these gifts. It can be anything from flowers, the sky any time of the day, rain puddles (rain is rare around here), to just enjoying some alone time. There is no specific guideline as to what qualifies as a stray gift. God knows just what we need; an answer to prayer, emotional relief from certain problems,  lost keys that now are found, a note in the mail from a long lost friend, an old photo which brings back good memories. To see, to know, to consider, to understand that God’s hand was in this is quite powerful and has the ability to change how we see. It matters to Him that we notice.

Anytime we consider God’s hand and His heart, we carve in the dirt and the muck of this world a pathway to greater faith.

Here is this week’s captured stray gifts.

Top Row (left to right): Roses that hide in the shade;  Stray gifts found in climbing potted houseplants. I had no idea it would climb like this. My dad has one that is stretching all the way around his room. He keeps it away from his bed so it doesn’t decide to choke him in the middle of the night. He is quite serious about this. ((Can plants do that???); Finding gold in my front yard

Middle Row: Morning Glory blooms are finally here! This is the very first bloom of the year on these vines; Again with the Morning Glories..they are seriously popping up everywhere. These are wrapping around the red rose barrel; Filtered sunlight through trees.

Bottom Row:  Stray gifts in blue skies and sunsets; not because they just “happened” to be there, but because I happened to wander outside to look.

Replace With Grace

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Broken. Unworthy. Weak. Shattered. Incapable. Ruined.

…All name tags either someone else gave to me or that I gave myself. Either way, at one point or another they had become an identity. Different losses in my life have made confidence fragile… in God, in others, and in myself. Through time and spiritual growth, some of the ink on these name tags have faded and I don’t pick them up off the table so much anymore.

As I grow in the Lord, I realize more and more the Bible is full of the broken, the weak, the seemingly incapable. Yet God defined them as righteous. Justified. Purified. Profitable for His glory. If He so then through grace changed the description of so many in the Bible, why wouldn’t He replace mine?

I need to change the conversation.

If this has been you, today..this week, together let’s change the conversation- the lies which Satan replays in our minds and hearts to distract the children of God from fulfilling His purpose. Let’s lay down the false narrative for good. Just one to begin with. Exchange it for one that God wrote with His own redeeming blood:

Beautiful. Loved. Confident. Restored. Useful. Saved.

2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

Sometimes Life Isn’t Fair

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Sometimes a critic can cause us to lose courage, but we can choose a different way.

Sometimes man-made rules or unmerited expectations hinder our sense of self-worth (or confidence in who God says we are), but we can choose a different way.

Sometimes a seed of doubt planted in a passing comment grows deep and rooted as an oak tree, but we can choose a different way.

We can choose to see negative thoughts and opinions as fact and be held captive. Living in fear, hurt, or shame because we didn’t “measure up” leads us nowhere.

But we can choose a different way.

We can choose to be the complimenter.
We can choose to be the grace-giver.
We can choose to be the planter of seeds of love, joy, peace…

And be set free.

Sometimes life isn’t fair. But we can choose to be.

Begin Again

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“Failure is an event, not a person”. – W.D. Brown

If things do not go my way this week, I will not “beat” myself up and hinder myself from moving on.

If I did not lose that one pound or gain miles on my Fitbit, I will not let it hinder me from continuing on with healthier choices.

If I didn’t, if I forgot, if I couldn’t do …I will not label myself a “failure” but simply see it as an event on a day in my life that can be easily overcome. And begin again tomorrow.

God will still be good, His love will still be present, and I will still be able to say, “The LORD hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad”. Psalm 126:3

As Regular As a Heartbeat

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For sunny skies, for flowers growing, for life, I am grateful. For handwritten notes from friends, an herbal tea bag tucked in a card, for friends who care, I am grateful. For easy paths and hard paths, too, with lessons learned and strength gained, I am grateful.

“Gratitude to God should be as regular as our heartbeat “.

A heart doesn’t have to think about what to do next. It beats because it does what it was designed to do. I don’t always live grateful. It is my will vs God’s will. And when I let the seed of discontentment be sown in my heart, it doesn’t do what it was designed to do; to beat as one with His. One by one, each new thanks I give promotes rhythms of the heart which restore, renew, and revel in grace.