Moments in Grace

The sun was shining into my windshield like glory flashes as I made the commute down to the University.   I was on my way to the Bible study for international moms and this was week two.   And I was trying to pray.   My mind was wandering over last week’s lesson, our first group, and my baptism by fire.   I had been asked to lead the study the very first week of the group and I had, but I was feeling in a word, inadequate.     The group is made up of mothers from all over the world, some brand new to our country, most only here for a year or two at most.   About half to three-fourths are believers and the rest are seekers, women who want to understand the Bible and who God is but who have little to no spiritual experience with Christianity.   And these women ask difficult questions.   The kind that make you want to hide under a rock because you are not sure that you can possibly explain what they are asking...

When I met her for the first time, she looked ordinary to me, unassuming, like any grandmother, anywhere, with salt and pepper hair and a soft, generous smile.   How could I have known that I had met a hero?   On that very first mission trip, into the high Mexican desert, up the winding dirt roads to land of cactus and cattle and smiling children living in structures made of sticks tied together with twine, how could I have known that there was a gem buried in those desert mountains?   That there was a gem of a woman tucked away in the sparsely dotted folds of those mountains, a hero of a woman with a name like a gemstone.   Her name was Garnet. And this gem of a grandmother, she led our team up these winding mountain roads and we bounced and jarred over rocks and packed dirt in a white twelve-passenger van, she told us her stories. The stories of a life lived full out for Jesus. She told us that she had come to this desert land when she w...

Our neighbors are moving.   And yesterday we said goodbye to the first friends we had made when we moved here.   They are not moving far but it will be harder to have play dates and for the kids to see each other.   We are sad to see them go.   We said goodbye with some tears.   Later in the day, the doorbell rings.   It is the neighbor girl bringing us a card.   Joy.   Just joy.   I think of all the neighborhood kids we have brought to church.   I think of all the kids we have prayed for and had over for Backyard Bible Clubs and the endless hours of our yard filled to overflowing with kids by the dozen.   And I am undone by grace. Because this was not my plan. Oh, I have spent years trying to protect my kids from the “world”, to keep them “safe”, to make sure they were doing the “right” things.   I endlessly questioned if they should even play with kids in the neighborhood and what about the b...

I have looked for love in all the wrong places. I have looked for it in my marriage, in my kids, in my friends, in my career, in myself. I tried hard to love and failed miserably. I have redoubled my efforts to love and fallen short again and again because I was trying to do loving works without actual love in my heart, and that will never work. Love is the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives.   The overflow of His life in us pouring out.   If we don’t love, then it is evidence that we need more of Him.   Not that we ever love perfectly, not that we ever get it completely right, but when we see our lack of love, it should cause us to ask one thing, for more of Jesus . The mission trip to Costa Rica for me was a place that God overflowed my cup.   A place where He filled me up with His love to pour me out on others.   But even more striking is the fact that I feel like I have lived way too long with less than His fullness. I ha...

She said it the way people tell you they are going to take out the trash. A matter of fact.   Unemotional.   Because when you are taking out the trash, it just needs taken out. And maybe sometimes the ugly truth has to come out that way too. She said she was raped. She said that she just couldn’t hide it, because it’s the shame that rots your heart like so much garbage and she just wanted to be free.   And she said that she knew, she knew that God didn’t do this to her.   That He loved her.   She said that she wasn’t going to hide it because she knew, that this is the stuff God uses. This is the stuff God uses. He uses it to tell His story.   To tell the story of His redeeming grace.   That God can redeem anything.   Everything.   All things become grace in His glorious hand. And only grace can give you this kind of hope, the hope to come out of hiding, the hope to believe in beauty again. And I’ve ...

I think they were prophetic.   Those words I wrote the day I flew off to Costa Rica for a short term mission trip. That all we have is our little bit of nothing and just this… God's love. Because if I had to describe this trip in just one word, that would be it. Love. Because really that is all we have.   We can’t save the world but we can love it. And we can’t rescue them all but in love we can make a difference for one. And when the love of God compels us then the love of God directs us and the love of God is what changes us all. I went on this trip in faith that God had called me to go.   I went expecting to be poured out.   And I was.   But the truth is that when you give God’s love, you get so much more than you gave.  Because you can't out give God. He loved and so He gave His life for us.  And when we love like Him we give like Him but we are given so much more than we had before.  ...

  This week my youngest brother flew off in a plane to spend the next nine months in Africa, a place designated as the "hottest place on earth".  He said goodbye to his brand new fiancée, his friends, his family, to go and serve our country in a place most of us would hope to never go to.  I'm proud to call him family. And today is my day to fly. This step of faith, this flying leap, I'm off to Costa Rica with the team from church to go and make disciples in another corner of this vastly small world.  To go and see what God might do there with our little bit of nothing and just this... Love. And this backpack that I've had since I was eighteen, it went with me to college and was there when I gave my life to Christ that September night of freshman year, and the day after I chose to follow Christ, I bought that key chain,  the one that says, Love. And it reminds me that all we have and all we are is all of the love of God.  And we go to gi...

I always wanted to live on the mission field.     I wanted to travel to faraway places, to take the gospel to people who had never heard.   I wanted the adventure, the passion, even, the sacrifice.   I thought that surely this is what God would have for me.   He would have wanted this, He would have made a way for me to go.   But when I married, two weeks after my 21 st birthday, it only took me a short time to realize that missions were the farthest thing from my husband’s life agenda.   Not because he doesn’t think they are important but because … he doesn’t travel well.   He hates eating anything remotely resembling foreign food.   He is just not the missions type and missions is not his ministry calling.   And I soon realized that moving to the mission field was not an option.   We’ve been married for almost 15 years now, and not much has changed.   There are no plans to become missionaries in Ecuado...