Grace

No, I have not abandoned my post.  Just needed some time.

It is weird not having the countdown, though.  I didn't mean to, you know.  They say, when you stop looking....Guess it's true.

I won't begin to gush about the amazingness of my life right now - I'll save that for another time.  But I will say this.  Maybe, just maybe...God has given to me the opportunity to have a partner in life - a real partner this time.  Someone so much like me, I can't remember life before.  Someday, I'll tell you all about it.

For now, I am thinking about grace.

Those of you who know me well enough know my story isn't pretty.  It's ugly.  So very ugly, I cannot share it here.  Sometimes a victim, but always by choice.  I tried to run my own life for so very long.  It never worked out well.  And I did it again and again and again.

So, I have this past - this hideous past.  I am so imperfect - if you were to only look at the black and white facts, one could not help but condemn me.

And yet, you see what I have become.  God has given me a life.  A life of beauty and love and kindness and joy and peace.  A life of Grace.  I am so undeserving, and yet...  His love has saved me.

And I am still so imperfect.  That doesn't even accurately describe it.  I still carry inside me the brokenness of humanity.  I fail.  Bad.

Just last night, I became rageful...at one of my children, no less.  I said things I shouldn't have said.  I became anger and rage and destruction.  See...that's still there...that part of me that will never be perfect.  I am shown, once again, my brokenness.

But...the shadow proves the Sunshine.

In spite of my detestable brokenness...Love prevails.  Grace prevails.  God says, "See?  Remember?  This isn't about you achieving perfection.  You never will.  This is about Me saving you and completing you and lifting you out of your human condition.  Because I love you."

And Love protects my son from his imperfect mother.  He still knows love, and he doesn't even consider for a moment that his mother might not love him...because he knows deeply that she does.

A friend, knowing full well my story, even said to me this morning, "I think you're genuinely one of the best people I've ever known."

That's Grace.

Humbled, once again, I receive that Grace with so much appreciation.  I so don't deserve it.  And yet...it saves me.

May Grace touch you the same as it has touched me.  Hopefully...you don't have to do it so ugly.

Love,
Jennifer