Moments in Grace

The way of the cross is not an easy way. It is the way of dying that leads to life and greatest fruitfulness.   When I came to know Christ I understood the cost but had no idea what it would mean for me. How God takes those who seek to follow Him and a time comes when he asks them to lay down everything that they hold most dear to their hearts so that they would   find that He alone is the true treasure worth seeking. I just didn’t know. I didn’t know how hard this path would be.   But I was willing to count the cost, whatever it may be, even if it cost me my life. But, can I be honest and say, there have been times I’ve struggled with resenting the hardness of this? There are times that I have struggled to keep my heart in the place of full surrender.   Maybe outwardly I was obeying but inwardly sometimes I have been angry, depressed, confused.   And the prosperity gospel of the Western world that says if you follow Jes...

I have a confession to make.  I have been harboring a tantalizing secret fantasy. A fantasy that has been worming its way into my thoughts and quiet moments, and my heart has been setting itself on it, happy. This fantasy involves a quiet country lane leading to a quiet country house, with quiet acres where, in my fantasy, my children can run free and I can sit enjoying the quiet and of course, peace. This is my fantasy. Because this year has been just plain hard.  Chaos overwhelming.  The longest, coldest, winter we've had in forever, with long days of six kids and usually several more neighborhood kids stuck in our smallish house. I dream of a place where the doorbell does not ring fifteen times per afternoon and when pull into the driveway there are not already herds of cheering boys greeting the sight of the big red van.  A place where there is room for little kids to run in safety away from the busy street and the bands ...

We were driving home, the snow blowing in white wisps across the icy blackness.  The heater of the car pouring forth hot air to warm our frozen fingers.  And she said it, these words, "How do you trust God?" This black winter night, we talked of God and grace and belief and how do you do this thing of trust? Our night had been spent at a support group for the grieving. Me, the support for my neighbor who lost her teenage son those years ago, the night she almost lost her life as well. How do you trust God? How do you trust, when you've lost everything, when your heart is ripped open, bloody and hemorrhaging, and how do you go on living? How do you? How do you learn to trust, to let go, when your whole life has been one unending day of clawing and clinging to control outcomes, to protect yourself, to keep danger at bay, to create your own world of complete safety.  And that....is incredibly hard work. But working hard, that's all she's ever know...

It has been a rough few weeks.  The kind that makes you want to just curl up in bed, covers pulled tight over head and never come out. The temptation in trials, sometimes, is to just forget who you are. Sunday, Pastor Steve preaches this message, about the tempting of Jesus, and I can feel it sinking deep into parched ground.  Oh, how I've needed to remember who I am, Whose I am. I am His. And it's this miracle of Grace that changes everything. I am His, not because I am good enough, I'll never be that. I am His, not because I get it right, but because He can't ever get it wrong. I am His, not because I work hard at it, but because He's told me to just believe that He already finished the work for me. I am His. And it's this trusting, this believing in His grace, that changes everything. I've spent over two years meditating on the book of Romans, trying to soak this grace deep into my pores. At morning devotions with the six kids, we ...