Tag Archives: 5 minute Friday

grace{full}

gracefigsufficient for me.
This I know.

But what do you do when that grace doesn’t seem sufficient to cover you in the eyes of someone else?

What do you do when that grace is stingily portioned out and never seems to quite cover you?

I have several relationships in my life where this is the common theme: “I deserve more grace than I can allow for you because (fill in the blank).”

It’s as though they know where I stand with the Lord…
(and they KNOW I stand)
…and yet they wish to ever so slightly punish me as well.

Subtly, softly…secretly.

It’s as though someone still has to pay.
In their minds, through their words and behavior,
my debts are still outstanding.

it hurts.

What do I do? How do I live from this place?

HOW God?!?!

Jesus answered; “Seventy times seven”.

I must choose to give grace anyway.

Choose to give
even and especially
to those who will not give it to me.

{I must choose to be graceFULL}

Choose to be filled by God to overflowing…
…a direct river of grace that goes to and through
and BEYOND my soul and my need;
and splashes over onto others.

Choose to give from God’s great storehouse of grace opened to me.

THAT’S what makes the grace of and from God as deep and as wide as it is; I don’t *need* it from someone else. There’s enough to cover me and enough for me to share when it seems scarce.

God alone sees the depth and provides for my need, restores my soul and gives me the grace to move through the gracelessness of this life.

And it’s why I can have the courage to love Him so much.

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Not {safe}…but Worth It

Here is my latest 5-minute Friday offering on the topic of “Risk”. If you want to join in the fray check out Gypsy Mama and jump in the circle!

jesus-answeredI know I shouldn’t have looked twice but I have no choice. I can no longer pretend not to see what God wants me to see. I can no longer pretend not to hear or understand.

Because while many, many things are not necessarily seen with the naked eye…

they are always seen with the naked heart.

So I looked… I chose to see and I what I saw didn’t shock or surprise me as much as I thought it would. I looked and saw more that I recognized than I thought I would. In so many ways I saw myself staring back at me…that self of so many insecure years ago. The little girl I was and not yet the woman I wanted to be and I felt …not pity but compassion. It was ok to feel and understand.

And each time it gets a little easier and really, I can’t help it anymore.

It’s God who does these things. He takes us forward and back through our brokenness into wholeness and back to revisit our brokenness to bring about new wholeness in these ways….like a weaver at a loom weaving together a marvelous and fine tapestry.

No scarred or tattered piece is cast aside. No strand of pain is too frayed to be used. No off-color fragment of memory is too short….every bit is reclaimed by Him for Him and in the word’s of Jason Gray–in the hands of our Redeemer–NOTHING is wasted.

I have a broken heart for broken women and somehow find myself, like Jesus, being led by Him to “go through” someplace seemingly out of the way of my ordinary day to meet them. And I will never forget the moment I submitted to His call and asked simply for the ability to see and the wisdom to KNOW and lead…to with Him, bind up the broken-hearted…and my life has never been the same since.

It’s not easy being a mentor. It’s not simple, short-term or even slightly convenient to be a discipler…but I’d have it no other way.  It’s a risk I’m willing to take to be so transparent with my fears, foibles and scars so that in this risky transparency, the light of Christ may shine forth in the darkest corners of this world. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Because, as C.S Lewis taught us, while our passionate and holy Lover and Great God is not “safe”… He is always GOOD.

And to serve Him with holy abandon is always a risk worth taking.

Fear not.

Look twice.

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