Finishing Well Part 1

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN JULY 2013

We wanted to finish well. We began our race in Indiana thinking it would be a 15 year marathon. 

We thought my mom had that long. But 3 years after our arrival, she went Home, and we were left to ask, "What now Lord? Where would You have us?"

We initially felt He would lead us rather quickly into a full time position for my husband somewhere else. But as the months and years went by, we wondered.

Well, I wondered. After 9 years I became convinced Indiana was where He would have us. I began to learn about this wonderful thing called "Community". With it came "Authenticity" and "Transparency" and "Intentionality." I fell in love with the Body of Christ, and met God as my Abba Father, after all these years. We felt God awakening us and awakening those in our sphere with His Spirit, His call to more, more... more relationship, more desperateness, more hunger and thirst for more of Him.

He gave me sisters who were not afraid to call me out on sin, or challenge me to rise up and be the woman of God He has made me to be. He gave me sisters who taught me how to laugh at myself, how to see the gray in my black and white world, and how to rest in His finished work on the Cross.

God thoroughly swept through every corner of my life, making me lay down all that I found my identity in besides Him. It was not pretty, and there are tell tale signs of the struggle still discernable in my life, if you know me well enough.  And then He gave me two distinct times when I lost hope. I could not see Jesus, and that scared me most of all. I could not see Him, hear Him, discern Him, and up to that point, no matter what happened around us, in my husband, in my kids, I could see Jesus, see purpose, see Hope, and I hung on. But Hope was gone, and all I could do was cry out to Jesus.  Mercifully, those two times were very short, but the impression they left are permanent.  He is my All. Without Him, I have nothing. I know this, because He proved it.

During those times, I didn't care whether or not our circumstances changed. I only wanted to stay close to Jesus, to stay close to my Abba Father who taught me to pray for His best and wait for it, no matter how long, to stay close to the community He gave to me, to the sisters who walked arm in arm with me and loved me deeply, even though they knew me thoroughly.

And then He called us to move.

Some Thoughts On Grace....

I was challenged yet again to give grace. Not demanded of, but challenged. The challenge came from a man I respect, whom I see as my spiritual dad. He's challenged me on this before, when he heard my tone regarding someone else.

This will cost me. And yet what will I pay that I did not receive myself, a thousand times over? So I began to think through what I've learned over the past few years regarding grace. This is not exhaustive, nor well written or thought out.... just my thoughts.

Grace can never be demanded, yet it demands to be freely given.

Grace is not "fluffy, feel good emotion" one extends to another. It comes with death - the death of the one who extends it. For us, not literal death, but a death to self. That's why demanded grace without grace given can be so offensive - it's a calling for another's death, without one's own willingness to die.

Extending grace is one of the most strength filled acts, requiring one's death for the benefit of another - it is the ultimate demonstration of strength under control (a definition of gentleness).

To extend grace gracefully, it requires a humility that had to previously exist, born from the fire of adversity.

Grace, by definition, is not earned. It is freely given. True grace does not require another to earn my acts of grace. I need to think about that.

Grace, when extended under the submission of the Spirit, is so, so beautiful. On the human level it probably heals more in the one who extends it, than in the one who receives it. There is joy, intimacy with Jesus, and peace, when one by faith, extends grace to one who does not deserve it. We see so much more of our own need of it, and it makes us more in awe of our Grace Filled Savior.

How grateful I am that I am not left to myself. Thank You Abba, for walking out grace through me.