Action De Grace

With Thanksgiving behind us and Christmas looming just ahead, I am hoping to remove distraction and find more time for reflection.  Not an easy task this time of year but still very necessary.  Things are changing rapidly around me and as life begins to pick up speed, now is the time for me to "be still and know God."

The meaning of Advent is a coming into place, view, or being; arrival.  This is especially significant to me this year because I am entering into a new phase of life.  The original Advent season was full of exciting anticipation which parallels the way I see my own new year to come.  The people were awaiting a gift from God - one that had been promised for generations.  The logistics of that gift coming along did not appear realistic but nonetheless, it was promised and it came to be.  I feel the same about what is happening in my own life.

The French meaning of Thanksgiving is action de grace.  Is it any wonder that Thanksgiving comes before Christmas?  It is a time to prepare our hearts for the greatest gift of grace there ever was!  We celebrate all the ways we are blessed just before we celebrate the arrival of our greatest blessing.

It has been heavy on my heart this last month that gratitude should come naturally to me and be practiced continually - not given focus just during a specific season of the year.  There are two themes that have developed over the last year for me:  love and gratitude.  They go hand in hand.  Without love, we would not experience thankfulness and without the ability to be thankful, we would not recognize when we are loved.  We must be able to to experience these in order to gain the full effect of God's provision and live out His purpose.  It is far too easy to forget the ways God loves us but if we are able to live Thanksgiving (action de grace) year round, we can't help but see evidence daily that we are held close to His heart.

Thanksgiving (action de grace) goes far beyond gratitude.  It must be acted upon - in other words, paid forward.  The giving part is my focus this year but I want it to extend beyond Christmas and I hope to be financially comfortable enough to engage in some random good deeds here and there.  It is most fun when remaining anonymous.  The dollar amount of the gift is not important - it's the heart of the giver that matters.  When you give out of love, the gift is precious no matter how big or small.  Whether tangible or intangible - if done out of gratitude, a gift can be the gateway to something even more valuable - it can be a glimpse of Christ for the receiver.

So - as I journey towards the things I've wanted most in life and I see them come to pass along the way, I will be reminded just how much God loves me.  In addition to being awestruck by it, I want to put into action and pay forward some of that love.  He has held me and protected me, healed me and empowered me over the last year and my hope is that somehow I can encourage others to see my source of strength and help them find it too.

In the words of Anne Voskamp:
When grace rescues you, then giving thanks is the responding action.
When grace delivers you, then action defines you. 
When grace takes you in right where you are, then you act out your gratitude wherever you are.
Random acts of kindness are the action plan of God’s people.
Thanksgiving is action de grace in French —  and after Thanksgiving comes Christmas and after grace comes action, and we don’t occasionally give thanks to feel good but we live thanks to routinely do good.

The Best

It occurred to me today that I have discovered what seasoned writers, artists and musicians have known for centuries.  Intense emotion inspires creativity.  For some, happiness is their greatest muse and others are spurred by sad events in their lives. Even anger can bring forth passionate works of art!  And although I don't consider my blogging an art form, I do notice that in my more emotional moments, my writing becomes more creative in nature - sometimes almost poetic and other times more rhythmic depending on what I'm going through.  Lately, however - I want to be poetic and I'm not - heck - I just want to have words to write and I just can't find them.  As for the emotion - it's there.  It's there like its never been before, with an intensity that I've never felt and yet I'm unable to express it.  Weird.

I wonder if perhaps I have used words to comfort myself in the past and no longer need that comfort?

Was that a control issue?  Was it a means of searching?

When I was unhappy I needed those words to be able to describe where I was and where I wanted to be.  Now that I am happy, I have no need for words.  I am just happy.  How many ways do you need to describe that?  Seriously, my worries are few and of the few, they are so trivial they are not worth mentioning.  At one time, my ability to be content was questioned.  Well looky here - I think I found the mysterious place of contentment.  Weird.

And yet at times I still question how I got here.  There is only one way.  Why question it?  When I look to God for guidance and learn to be in His presence, He provides.  It's as simple as that.  When I try to do it myself, life begins to suck.  It's all about trust and relationship.  I am inadequate but HE is everything!

He loves us so much.  He wants to give us His best. God's best is better than you can imagine - take it from me, I know.  It may have taken me half a lifetime to figure it out, but I'm glad I finally did.  The future has never looked so bright.  As Robert Browning said, "The best is yet to be!"

Psalm 71:20
Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again;
from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up.

Peaceful Anticipation

So yeah.....  apparently this is my place for emotional purging and it appears that I must be a recovering bulemic blogger because it's been a long time since I have felt the need to write.  Is that a good thing?  Perhaps.....

On the one hand, it is incredibly refreshing to be off the roller coaster of despair and excitement.  It is nice to just coast for awhile on the straight and narrow.   Yet on the other,  I fear that the lack of expression could cause my creativity to decline and that is an important aspect of my personality.  Perhaps I am learning to express myself in new ways.

What I am beginning to see is the end of a chapter in my life - closing in on the final pages.  It is bittersweet as several doors have closed but new, beautiful windows are beginning to open.  The change is welcome but still brings about some quiet apprehension mixed with anxious excitement. It is very difficult for me to prohibit myself from skipping to the last page and rush the ending.  I know that I need to savor every precious morsel of new beginning that I can, but it requires restraint not to head straight for the dessert.

If I could only explain how incredibly blessed I feel !!!!  I spent so many months feeling dejected and alone but seeking all the ways God loves me.  I found them finally and then He blessed me even more!  Funny how He works that way.  Just when you realize how good you have it, it gets even better.  I'm going to do my best not to grumble any more about the little things and look for good in every situation - even those very dark days because those are the times we are shaped and molded into His likeness to become the hope that so many seek. 

However - in spite of the peace and calm I am feeling now, a girl just tends to worry a bit and this is what came across my desk this morning.  Two points of scripture that show again just how much God loves us:

5 Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track. Don't assume that you know it all. Run to God! Run from evil! Your body will glow with health, your very bones will vibrate with life! Honor God with everything you own; give him the first and the best. Your barns will burst, your wine vats will brim over. But don't, dear friend, resent God's discipline; don't sulk under his loving correction. It's the child he loves that god corrects; a father's delight is behind all this.6 Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track.   (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Philippians 4:7

7 Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

Suck It Up

Romans 5:3  Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance.......

REALLY?

I sometimes have to have a big toddler temper tantrum when I don't get my way.  Come on God!  It's YOUR fault - YOU spoiled me!

But you know what?  Even when parents spoil their children and they know they are partly to blame for the fallout, they still have to teach them NOT to behave that way.  So ---  I guess that's where I am this week.  I've been put in time out because I had a BIG BABY fit!

I've been sent to my room to think about things.

I have to learn to be gracious even when things aren't going MY WAY and I have to learn there are other needs bigger than my own and I have know that the very good things in life cannot be rushed and that patience produces perseverance.

James 1:4
Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Yes - I still want what I want when I want it.  However, I've already realized that I don't want something that's not complete.  I don't want something immature or lacking.  I want it ALL.  I want something whole and real and finished to perfection. That only happens in God's timing and if I trust Him - then I know He makes all things work together for good - even temper tantrums - even timeouts.

So I'm going to take this long weekend at home alone and talk to God - thank Him for all He's blessed me with, let Him enlighten me as to why I can't rush through life, and try to listen for His direction.  AND practice patience - that's the really hard part.  But I know - that just as parents punish their children when they misbehave, they also reward them for good behavior.  Time to be a big girl!  I have a feeling there's a big reward around the corner.

James 5:11
 As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

 

 

 

The Rescue

All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort—we get a full measure of that, too.  (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)

I saw this verse in passing a couple of days ago and book marked it.  I felt it needed some thought and I have had such a busy week, I haven't had time for spare thoughts.  This morning, however, I was finally able to sit down and go through my email - looking back at those I had saved for more consideration.  This verse was in one of those emails and it really spoke to me.

I spent a great many months.... no actually many YEARS in an internal battle over marital issues.  My emotions have run the gamut from sadness to anger to heartbreak and I'm sure the fallout is not ever really over.  However, the battle is.  I'm not even going to proclaim victory from that battle because in conflicts of that nature, no one is ever victorious.  But I do believe that there was purpose in that.  I'm not at all saying God caused it - quite the contrary.  However, God USED it. God used that battle (which was a consequence of human choices) to teach me so many valuable lessons and cleanse me emotionally.  I've used this quote before but it is so meaningful to me:  "God does not always calm the storm.  Sometimes He lets the storm rage and calms His child."

Today I have experienced the calm after the storm and now the sun has come out!  I know others that are in similar circumstances but in different stages and I ache for them.  However, I've come far enough to know that those struggles are necessary and I hope that somehow the blessings I've been given lately can be an example to those still suffering that God is faithful and will provide if only we will trust him.  There were a few who encouraged me during my stormy days and those who offered the most hope to me were the ones who also had a relationship with Christ.  They offered credibility whereas my secular friends gave even more uncertainty.  I'm not sure how one truly gets out of the storm without a rescue.    My rescue was from Christ but came in the form of friends and family who cared.  I see His handiwork not just in the storm but in the rescue itself - through this I see that somehow He has equipped me to be part of His rescue team as well.

I'll never know when my new skills will come in handy, but for now I get to carry the comfort and confidence of having lived through the storm only to see brighter days ahead.  When life brings me down, all I have to do is remind myself just what I've been through and how it turned out just fine in the end.  This is part of practicing faith.  I've learned that practice does not actually ever make perfect.  We are always subject to errors and flaws.  However, practice DOES make progress and I'm thankful to see the evidence of progress in my life.  I plan to keep practicing because with each new day, I get a little bit stronger and that's really what its all about anyway.  

One of my storm crew had this to say to me once and I couldn't help but take it to heart.  He was in the midst of his own storm at the time but knew exactly what to do.  

"I've walked with God through enough yesterdays to trust Him with all my tomorrows" ~D. Moore

God has this!  He's got us in His palm.  Sometimes that's all we need to know.

Beyond words

This post is actually one that I started last month but just couldn't finish.  I had so many overwhelming thoughts on the subject that I could not process them all.  I just had to let them marinate awhile.  These thoughts have not left me but intensified in the last few weeks.  The question I keep asking - What did I do to deserve this?

However the context of that question is far different from the context in which most people ask it.  This time, there is a positive spin.  Most people ask this question when things are bad but in my situation, things are incredibly good - better than I could have asked, better than I even hoped for.

Why would God bless me this much and why now? 

My answer came today in Ann Voskamp's blog.  Her realization of God's grace hit a target area in my heart.  " Sometimes the proof that God exists is that lightning doesn’t strike but quiet grace rains straight down."  I've always understood that God loves me but sometimes I think He chooses to show us in ways that we least expect.    In Ann's blog she describes a struggle that her friend was facing in accepting God's grace.  She questioned - "why does God strangely bless us when we’re half-estranged from him?" I am not estranged from God - quite the opposite; but I'm also not as close as I thought I should be in order to experience His love like I have over the past few weeks.

For the last year, I've felt that God was asking me to fall in love with Him before He would show me the type of love I was seeking with another.  Falling in love with God is one of those things that is much easier said than done.  Maybe it's that I confused the emotional aspect of love with the action form of love yet again.  This has been a struggle for me all my life: that Prince Charming theology that so many little girls buy into.Who doesn't want happily ever after?  And maybe I didn't truly feel the emotion that I was looking for when I was loving God.  Let's face it - love is not always easy.  It is a choice.  And maybe that's exactly what I did right this time.  I chose it.  I chose to love God - even when I didn't feel it.  I sought Him and I listened when He spoke and I looked for all the ways He loves me and found them - even when my heart was broken, even when it ached beyond what I thought I could bear.

So what did I do to deserve the happiness I feel now?  Absolutely nothing.  Nothing that I can do is worthy of the way God is blessing me at this time in my life - not even the fact that I sought Him when it was incredibly difficult - when it would have been easier to hate Him.  But this is exactly why His blessings are true gifts.  They are not deserved - not ever.  But they are one way God proves to us that He is present and that He hears our cries.

Ann also acknowledges - "Sometimes it’s incomprehensible grace that shakes you awake."  If I've ever been awake and aware of God's presence in my life, it's now.  The only reason I can say that is because of His grace and His hand in what's happening in my heart.

Lastly I want to share song lyrics that Ann's son shared with her during his illness with pneumonia - "If grace is an ocean, we're all sinking." What an incredible kid to think of a song like that at a time when he was suffering!

But how incredibly true that is - I'm falling, and sinking very fast, very deep in a sea of grace.  Words can't express my gratitude and perhaps that's why I couldn't even express this in my blog.  Words elude me when emotion is extreme but that's not a bad thing.   I may not be writing as often but that's only because I'm taking in grace - swimming in it - soaking it in - basking in His love while the emotion is alive and well so that I never forget and never repeat old patterns or mistakes.  I like to give credit where credit is due and that goes to my Heavenly Father who loves me and loves you.  All I can hope is that someone who may be seeing dark days can look at me and know that there is hope and that God wants to bless them too and hold on to that hope even when life seems empty.  In our weakest days we can hold on to this:

His strength is perfect when our strength is gone
He'll carry us when we can't carry on
Raised in His power, the weak become strong
His strength is perfect, His strength is perfect (Stephen Curtis Chapman)

And always remember: 
God’s mercies are new every morning — not as an obligation to you, but as an affirmation of you. (Ann Voskamp)

Open Heart Surgery.

When God speaks, I listen......   most of the time.  But when God speaks in the middle of the night and won't let me go back to sleep - - I blog.

I often wish that we could see the meaning behind the trials in our lives as we go through them.  I think it would make them easier to bear.  However, I've discovered that it is usually only in hindsight that we see how God was working.  Tonight, it occurred to me that perhaps that is because we could not have the proper appreciation for His handiwork if we knew up front what He was doing.  But I also wonder if it is human free will that prohibits our own understanding of our situation.  I mean, how can God reveal to us what is happening when our lives revolve around someone else's choices.  Yes - He knows what choice will be made but He also has to work around that choice - and perhaps He chooses to bless us more when we've been hurt and dejected because of the poor decisions of others and our own abuse of free will.

I'm going to go all sappy, romantic here so if you don't like that kind of thing, quit reading now.

There is no better feeling on earth to have a heart full of love to give along with a recipient to receive it and reciprocate it.  The excitement of finding "the one" comes with a fullness and joy that's difficult to describe.  Life becomes full of hope and anticipation of a wonderful life ahead.

But is that reality?  or falsehood?  Perhaps a little of both I believe.

You see.... I've been in that state before.  It worked but only for awhile. Life got in the way. Hopes and dreams turned into fear and regret.  It didn't matter how fully I gave my heart away -  that gift became just another item on the shelf.  Dusty and dull....  lifeless..... lonely.... forgotten.  And that's when the lack of care caused the heart to decay and harden.  Perhaps it was the recipient's fault, perhaps it was the heart's own fault or, more likely, it was a combination of the two.

I've been over the reasons why way too many times over the last year and a half.  Tonight I'm laying that to rest.  There is really only one reason and it's important that I see it now.

The reason I failed is because I entrusted my heart to a man FIRST and to God second (or honestly not even second.....  I would imagine God was way down on the list after other humans, things, or activities)  When I was finally able to retrieve my decaying, hardened heart, I had no idea what could be done with it.  I only knew that *I* could not  revive it.  Perhaps another man could?  Perhaps I didn't even need the heart?  Perhaps it was not worth saving.

So my trial and error way of life began to reveal that the answer to all those questions was a very definite NO.  I began to realize that there was only One who was deserving of my heart.  But how could I give such a broken down, dusty, dirty, ugly part of me to the One who made me?  How could I show Him that I had neglected my own heart as much as the man whom I'd entrusted it to?  My maker.... who is the only One who deserved my heart when it was healthy and whom I did not give it to - was actually the only One who wanted it now that it was deformed.  So I trusted.  I returned my heart to Him.  He took it and treasured it and kept it safe.  During that time, it was cleansed and freshened.  It was revitalized to vibrancy and returned to the same softness of its youth.  Total restoration - totally undeserved - out of total grace and mercy.

But then God did the unexpected. He gave me my heart back.  I am incredibly humbled by this gift. Because I trusted Him, He in turn has deemed me worthy of possessing HIS most treasured possession.  When I examine the heart He returned, it clearly has His name on it.  He has engraved His name upon my heart.  With His name also came a promise.  That if I learned how to love Him, MORE than I loved any man - He would bless me beyond what I could ever imagine. 

Why would God give my heart back?  Why wouldn't He keep it?  I believe because He wants me to see His handiwork and open up my heart to be shared again.  This time when I share it - it will not simply be given away.  No, this time my open heart will be merged with another open heart - mended by God - meant to be shared.  This time - two hearts - that have the handiwork of God engraved on them  will then be given back to the only One worthy of such a gift. Because we have free will, He can't impose the joining of two hearts but He can match them up.  It's only when those two hearts trust that this intricate combination can occur.  Only God can make them into one and only God can keep them whole.

Ephesians 2:10 - For we are God's masterpiece.  He has created us anew in Christ Jesus so that we can do the good things He planned long ago.