My Current Grace

If you haven't heard me say it before I am saying it now, I am not, by nature, a positive person. I am by nature a person who sees the glass half full.

What a pain, right?

Seeing life this way is not pleasant and even more, it's not Godly.

So because Jesus loves me so stinkin much he is not content to leave me in this unpleasant place. He is dead set on giving me another perspective.

I started following this blogger a couple years ago.  This woman had cancer, a husband and 4 beautiful children. She wrote about her journey with cancer; her journey through hell. Here's the thing though, she never once made it out to be hell, even though we all know that's what it was.

The two biggest things she talked about were grace and kindness.

Who talks about grace and kindness when you're going to die? She did and it was amazing, life changing even, to read her words.

Kara passed away a while back. A heart retching thing, even from afar, but she left her mark on anyone that had contact with her, even if it was only through a blog.

So in our current situation the highs are high and the lows are low and I often struggle with being taken over by it all. It feels silly saying that after talking about such a heroic woman, but that's just my reality, silly or not, so here's my goal: FIND THE GRACE.

It's there, every single day, no matter how wonderful or horrible the situation. The grace is there.

So I've been keeping my eyes open, seeking it out and purposefully looking for it.

Yesterday a piece of grace was my kids playing happily TOGETHER without fighting. Parents out there, you understand what a huge miracle this is, right? Then there were new friends that came to our door and hung out. Today the grace was sunshine and a new doughnut place. A few days ago the grace was seeing the sunrise and having people pray joy over me.

Every day the grace looks different. Every day we run the risk of missing it by focusing on the negatives in our lives. For example; my kitchen is a bathroom right now.....for reals. I could really make that into a huge thing and miss all the beauty that is in the situation. And when I say beauty what I mean is humor. Humor is beauty and we'll be getting a laugh out of this one for years to come.

The other day I was feeling so overwhelmed with life and I was thinking of all the things that are gonna happen in this next month. It felt like chaos and I was sobbing. Until God gave me this amazing revelation; there is no grace in the future.

It's so powerful I have to say it again; there is NO grace in the future. The grace we are given is CURRENT grace.

When I get sucked into all the overwhelming things of today or the overwhelming things of tomorrow, I am forfeiting grace because I'm not living in THE MOMENT!

And who can live without grace? No wonder I was overwhelmed and sobbing.

I need grace more than the very air I breath. I cannot come against any of the hard things in life without it, and neither can you.

So where is your grace today. Are you looking for it? I know I am. I am on the watch for where God is showing up in the little, but miraculous current grace. I refuse to be pulled into a place that is absent of God's grace. Let's live in the moment and watch for the grace and know that even in hard things God has always got our back.

Also if any of you are interested Kara has a blog called Mundane Faithfulness and a book called the Hardest Peace. The book and blog are both amazing! Check'em out. If you buy the book the money goes to her kids.