Celebrating Grace
Today is grace day.
Everybody should have a grace day. If you don't, I hope one comes for you soon.
Grace day marks where pain met healing. Where sin met forgiveness. Where love bridged a gap.
Grace day is all about Jesus doing what Jesus does best: saving us.
I'm not just talking about salvation, though that's certainly cause for a grace day (mine's May 17th). I'm talking about a pivotal moment in a life that is an ever certain miracle and can only be the work of God. Like the ancients building alters in the wilderness to honor something God had done, grace day is my token of remembrance.
Every year, on June 18, I pause and remember. I remember how I was hopeless, and Jesus cast a rope. I was broken, and Jesus made me whole. I was in a mess, and Jesus picked up the pieces.
Grace day reminds me that the ugliest parts of ourselves will be revealed. They will be drawn out, purged from our hearts into our lives one way or another, and it won't be pretty. It will be scary, overwhelming and risky. We will spew forth the sin that has haunted us, controlled us, burdened us, and kept us from joy. All the strife, all the heartbreak, all the lingering pain will come to a jagged point and overflow.
And when it's all out, when we're standing there waist deep in the muck of our sin, naked and desperate and longing for relief...
Relief comes.
It comes in confession. In forgiveness. In humility. In honesty. In unwavering love.
In Jesus.
And suddenly, your life story has a hero. And it's not you.
Thank you, God, for grace days. Thank you that our journeys don't end at the moment of salvation, that you continue writing the most incredible stories in our lives--in spite of us. You take miserable failures like me and you make something beautiful.
"And that is what some of you were..." (1 Corinthians 6:11)
"I'll build an alter from the rubble that you found me in, and every stone will sing of what you can redeem." (Song below)
Everybody should have a grace day. If you don't, I hope one comes for you soon.
Grace day marks where pain met healing. Where sin met forgiveness. Where love bridged a gap.
Grace day is all about Jesus doing what Jesus does best: saving us.
I'm not just talking about salvation, though that's certainly cause for a grace day (mine's May 17th). I'm talking about a pivotal moment in a life that is an ever certain miracle and can only be the work of God. Like the ancients building alters in the wilderness to honor something God had done, grace day is my token of remembrance.
Every year, on June 18, I pause and remember. I remember how I was hopeless, and Jesus cast a rope. I was broken, and Jesus made me whole. I was in a mess, and Jesus picked up the pieces.
Grace day reminds me that the ugliest parts of ourselves will be revealed. They will be drawn out, purged from our hearts into our lives one way or another, and it won't be pretty. It will be scary, overwhelming and risky. We will spew forth the sin that has haunted us, controlled us, burdened us, and kept us from joy. All the strife, all the heartbreak, all the lingering pain will come to a jagged point and overflow.
And when it's all out, when we're standing there waist deep in the muck of our sin, naked and desperate and longing for relief...
Relief comes.
It comes in confession. In forgiveness. In humility. In honesty. In unwavering love.
In Jesus.
And suddenly, your life story has a hero. And it's not you.
Thank you, God, for grace days. Thank you that our journeys don't end at the moment of salvation, that you continue writing the most incredible stories in our lives--in spite of us. You take miserable failures like me and you make something beautiful.
"And that is what some of you were..." (1 Corinthians 6:11)
"I'll build an alter from the rubble that you found me in, and every stone will sing of what you can redeem." (Song below)
Comments