Grace

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Grace.

It happened a year ago August.  I had left a sweet meeting with my dear mentor and I was unglued in the best sense of the word.  We had gone into the depths of some painful memories and I had wept and been freed up even more.  Jesus is relentlessly, yet patiently excavating my heart and digging out the remnants of old hurts and bringing up the wounds so that He can breathe healing all over them.  Each time I meet with my mentor in this way more and more of that old gets sloughed off and there is a fresh wind of peace and joy blowing through the open spaces.  But the wounds are often fresh when I leave her and I feel more vulnerable and tender for a time.  Healing is like that. 

This meeting was no different and on the way home -- my long two-hour drive back to my life and family -- I was looking for something to listen to as I drove.  I finally turned on my laptop on the passenger seat and pulled up my audiobooks file.  I have this habit of downloading free audiobooks whenever they are available so I quickly scanned the list.  Not knowing who wrote what, a title struck me: "All of Grace."  I hit play.  As the author's name was spoken, I thought, "hmmm ... maybe not."  I know this author, C. H. Spurgeon.  I have his devotional, "Morning and Evening."  I do respect him and gain so much from his writings, but he is also a person who was very exacting at times and I knew I was a bit tender and needed kid gloves that night.  I reluctantly continued to listen and bit by bit the message sunk in.  When we are vulnerable, there is not much to defend us.  What is heard sinks in without a wall to keep it out.  I can't find words to explain what happened as I listened, but it was as though the very voice of God were speaking these words of grace to me, personally.  I drove those two hours, hearing from God through the most unlikely and unsolicited source. 

I heard God say that He justifies the ungodly.  It comes into all our minds -- and it surely had come into mine -- that somehow we need to be good enough for God to want to have anything to do with us.  And I have spent years doubting the true love of God for me.  But, there, in the dark of my car, alone on the freeway home I heard it:  God does not come because we are just, but to make us so.  This old truth was made new to me that night.  It is simply impossible to convey the miracle of an awakening.  I had knowledge of this truth, of course, but in this unexpected moment, grace broke through.  And it broke through like a dam breaking.  I felt the rush of newness and the freedom of Jesus' forgiveness.  In the same book Spurgeon says that we can have a recumbant relationship with God.  I think of that often now.  How I can lean back as in a chez lounge and find rest.  It is because of grace that I can relax into God.  Dallas Willard used to say grace isn't just for the sinner -- the godly burn it up like a jet burns up fuel.  We need that grace and we have it in abundance.  Can't you just feel the wind of freedom and joy?  It is not just wishful thinking, it is the ground on which I now firmly stand.  I've had a grace awakening, and I just can't be the same again. 

Stop.

Together

You should see them.  The two of them, bundled under a blanket reading a book.  Big brother arm around little wide-eyed brother as they soak in a story together in the warmth of their friendship.  You should see them -- the two of them -- as they wrestle around and play made up games with rules only they know in the secrets of their brotherhood.

We used to be two.  Me and my sweet husband.  We had to wait to have our first.  When I heard I was pregnant there weren't words or songs to describe my joy.  And several months later we found out about her.  Our niece in great need whom we had never met because of the lost and broken life of my husband's brother.  And we took her in to be our own only three months after our first was born.  Together we committed to her.  And we were on the roller coaster together.  All four of us a brand-new family of strangers who meant the world to one another.

She left when her mom got it together and we were left just three.  And it never was the same and it wasn't quite complete.

Grief leaves its marks and together we had to overcome that loss and make life enough again.

And six years later after the loss of our niece God gave us our second son.  My oldest said, "Sometimes God answers prayers slowly because, Mom, I've been praying for a baby brother or sister for two years."  And in his then-six-year-old life that WAS slowly.  But God did answer. 

And together those boys just might conquer the world as they have surely conquered my heart.  They say "phileo" is brotherly love.  We have it in spades over here -- and God is what holds us together.

Stop.  

Sweet Surprises ...

You know those days when you plan something in advance and then when the day finally comes ... it's rained out! Well, we planned this free trip to Legoland (thanks, Laurel!) and it turns out that the entire state was getting a rainfall today. California. Rained out. We did the right thing and stopped packing last night. We'll just have a day at home ... catch up on a few things; relax; Jon and Jor can go skating ... stuff like that.

Well, we got this wild hair and thought we'd go ahead and go on an adventure. After sleeping in and getting a late start we thought, "what can it hurt to go down to San Diego anyway. We don't want to forfeit our hotel room afterall." We fared a stop and go trip through LA traffic the weekend before Christmas and almost lost our seasonal cheer along the way.

Got to Legoland at 3pm. It closes at 5pm. Are we crazy? We drove from 10:30a - 3:00p to spend two hours at Legoland! Hang in there. It turned out to be GREAT! There were no lines. Really? You mean we were the only crazies who decided to go to Legoland in the rain? Yep ... well, almost. But, guess what? There was not even a drop of rain! We had a blast. Rode more rides than usual and ran around like a bunch of kids (okay, half our family ARE kids) on the huge playset and then went to TGIFridays for a YUMMY supper ... now all are tucked in at the Hampton Carlsbad. And, BONUS ... we get to go to Legoland Sea Thingy (not the real name) tomorrow for two hours before we head back to LA for the family Christmas party.

Isn't God sweet. He is anyway ... even when He doesn't give special family get-away weekends. I mean, He's sweet when times like my dear friends have been going through hit ... in times of cancer, chrons disease, losses of jobs. He's just plain sweet. I just want to end tonight looking at all the sleeping faces of my three favorite guys and thanking God for all His goodness.