Uncommon Grace

After years and years of wrestling with God, plus some whining and complaining I am embarking on a new adventure in life.  I have been prompted for years to write.  For reasons I cannot explain even to myself, I have pushed this idea into the far dark corners of my mind.  God always has a way of bringing things back to the forefront and shining a huge spotlight on what he wants us to do.  I do not know about you but I tend to argue with God on many occasions.  Typical father/daughter relationship I suppose.  I have tried to tell him there are amazing writers out there, why should I bother.  What is so special about me?  Why in the world would anyone want to read what I have to say.  Where do I start, if I start at the beginning my goodness I would have to sit at a computer everyday for the rest of my life!  I am probably over half way done with this race called life on this earth!  I am transitioning into the phase of life that I no longer live on such a crazy rigid schedule.  I suppose that is the best reason that now is the time.  My mom and grandmother always talked about seasons in life, this is my new season.  I have been, for lack of a better word, disobedient for years; and this weekend I heard very clearly that I needed to step out with a crazy amount of faith and let God take care of the words.  All that said here I am…lots of stuff in my head but more in my heart that I hope to share with you.

This past fall I was challenged by a young mother to pick one word to focus on for the new year.  After praying about what my word was to be God gave me the word Grace.  Not only did he give me the word but he has lavished it on me all my life.  The word Grace means unmerited favor, honor, undeserving, refinement.  I then started to think briefly over my life as far back as I could remember and the word that came to me to describe my life is uncommon.  The word uncommon means unusual, abnormal, unfamiliar, strange, odd, peculiar, outlandish, bizarre, extraordinary, and unconventional.  I have put these together and what I came up to best describe my life and what God has done and continues to do for me bizarre refinement.  God’s hand of grace has stayed on me even when I have not felt it.  I know God is refining me in so many ways, often the ways He refines me are bizarre.    Perhaps it is me but I want to be the kind of wife, mother, nana, sister, and friend that extends this same kind of Grace to help refine the women around me to be all God intends them to be.  Psalm 84:11 says For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord will give grace and glory: No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly.  The Lord will give grace but we must walk uprightly.

I pray that over the days to come as God gives me the things to share that I can be that person of encouragement for you.  We all need a cheerleader in our little corner of the world telling us we can do it.  We can forge forward and know that God does have a plan for us.  Although I may not know each person personally that may read these words, I know God does.  He made you!  He made you amazing and with potential and talent that you have yet to see for yourself.  Your past and your life stories are not for waste.  God has a perfect plan in knitting them all together to use.  In those moments of life where you feel like you want to hide or retreat, life seems too hard or you feel like you have just one big mess on your hands, hold your head up and lean into God.  The devil wants you to feel worthless and defeated.  He will drudge up every hard thing in your life and every mistake will replay like a broken record (okay, I may be aging myself but you get the idea!) in your head.  Trust me no one is exempt from the devil’s harassment but by God’s grace, which means His favor, you can forge forward.  God favors you!  You matter and God has amazing plans in store for you.  I will leave you with a quote I read the other day, unfortunately I do not know who to give the credit to but it was good!  It says…”The devil does not know what to do with someone who won’t give up!”  I challenge you as my friend challenged me, take some time and think of a word to focus on this year.  You will be amazed at how aware you become of a simple word and it’s meaning in your own life.

Until next time…