enough

"i do not understand the mystery of grace- only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us" anne lamott~ traveling mercies

i was thinking of an email i received a few years ago from my sister.  i dont really know why i was thinking about it.  maybe my mind went there because it was her birthday.  i do not remember the email in its entirety.  just one reference.  to grace.  grace and its sufficiency.  grace is talked about often, so why did this email settle in my mind?  you see my sister has had some major healthy problems.  over the last ten years she has been in and out of the hospital every 6 months or so fighting a pain that continued to be unidentified and incurable to many, many doctors.  with any illness of great length, your mind and emotions experience just as much, if not more, pain as the body.  i spent most of this time completely and utterly confused.  confused at God.  confused at doctors.  confused at my sister.  confused at God.  drivingto the hospital one day in college when lindsay had to spend some times there after another attack, i remember crying out to God for answers.  an explanation of why my sister, who i love and believe God loves, had to experience such pain and for so long.  and more than an explanation, i wanted it to stop.  how could a God of love and care of gentleness and compassion, grace and mercy, allow her to time and time again sit in that damn hospital and have doctors continue to fail to bring about any real change?  i was not the one on the bed, but i was furious.  i was sad.  i was hurt.  and i was confused.  as we all do, i try to make a deal with God... as if there was something the Creator of the universe wanted in exchange for healing.  i had faith that God really did have the measures to make it go away.  my family and lindsay's friends cried out for help, for an answer and it just seemed like we were getting now response. a few weeks after she went home from the hospital, lindsay sent out an email to some people catching them up on her latest episode.  she is a brilliant writer and i'm sure the email was full of capturing thoughts, but one stuck out.  His grace is sufficient for me.  "My grace is sufficient for you" (2 Corinthians 12:9).  these words sprang of the page and pierced me in the heart.  how could this woman, my sister, who lived in either pain or the fear of pain arising, claim that God's grace was enough for her.  in the midst of a dismal picture of a life ahead that looked full of pain, she looked at the God who created her and loves her and said you are suffice.  the grace you have given me through Your Son on the cross, it is enough.  whether my insides are healed.  whether i will ever have children... Your grace is enough.  and i began to believe that His grace is enough for me.  i still doubt that and too often live my life trying to fill it with pride, success, money, and security, but remember that God loves me and He tells me His grace is enough.  He told me a couple of years ago in an email from a girl who had every right in the world to cuss God and tell him to take is sufficient grace straight to hell.  but in the midst of pain and suffering, she told me that His grace is enough.

endless

i was sitting with two dear friends today... friends you like to tell people about.  friends that stand beside you on your wedding day.  friends who, as my dad says, will carry your casket one day.  we were catching up on life and one friend was filling us in on somethings in his life that were really going well and then he continued to tell us how this one deal just was really messing with him.  i hated for him that he is having to process through this kinda sucky situation, but on the other hand i was jealous.  he is experiencing God's grace and unconditional in a way i am not even sure he knows yet.  as we was venting to us i ashamedly drifted off for a second to my own world,reminding myself how i have experienced this incarnational love and grace he is showing.  through my beautiful wife, my loving parents, a hurt sister, a life long friend, perfectly timed notes, and in so many other ways.  all of these moments that have been filled with grace came into my mind.  i finally waded back into the conversation after my selfish metal break and heard him talk about how he was not angry, but just saddened by the brokeness of our world.  i think this is how God feels most of the time. i do not believe in a God that has positioned himself on a throne with a iron scepter in hand, waiting to strike down vengeance on his children when they fall.  i believe in a God, who like any proud parent, watches while we learn to walk and picks us up and dusts off whenever we fall.  our God's heart breaks for the brokenness of the world.  the brokenness we all cause. but in the midst of us turning our back, saying no to his protection and freedom, he offers what we need most- love.  and through his dying love comes his saving grace.  grace that known no end.  

i'm very proud of my friend.  and very thankful.  you see it was through him that i was reminded of a Father who stands waiting for me with open arms... with dying love... with endless grace.

sundays

their friends' love turned out to be the sound of God at the mouth of the cave, a breeze to sustain and help guide them.     ~anne lamott,  Traveling Mercies

 sunday my incredibly cute nephews were dedicated at Lindsay and daniel’s church.  in campbell and graham’s short nine months, pages could be filled with the ways in which God has shown up in their lives and the lives of their parents and their uncle and their grandparents and everyone who has been a part of their miraculous story.  sunday was a beautiful time of remembering God’s hand in their lives as the preacher told their story and prayed for them and challenged their parents.  but for a moment my attention moved from the beautiful baby boys and Lindsay and Daniel, to the ones who circled behind them, their friends.  these few dear friends surrounding them, laying their hands on then are the people that live life with them.  it was such a blessing to see the support they have outside our family. 

i have been blessed with people, beyond my family, surrounding me.  men and women who have dared to crawl into dark places in my life and remind me of the light that still lingers on the outside.  in our lives we need these people, these friends.  the ones who show up and have a distinct, loud voice in our life, one that sounds like God.