No stranger to grace

 

I’ve always imagined an extraordinary life. A life filled to the brim with amazing grace.

 

The danger is, in looking only for the amazing grace of the extraordinary flashes I will miss the amazing ‘ordinary’ grace given in the routine, the humdrum.

 

All grace amazes if we know ourselves inside out. Especially if we are well acquainted with our inside. The bits we cover and shield and convince ourselves remain unseen.

 

But One sees. One sees our bone-deep rottenness and still showers grace in spite of ourselves. One who sees beyond how we see ourselves on our worst days. He is the gift that keeps on giving, the One who unwraps us and names us ‘grace-full’. In Him our undeserving hearts are daily blessed.

 

The trick is to look for it where we are. To look for the grace of ordinary sight to see the everyday extraordinary. At the kitchen sink, the school gates, the queue, the drive home at the end of a long day.

 

And soon we see we are no stranger to grace.

 

There’s nothing within me, no gleam or glitter, that makes me deserve it. I am fed by grace, housed by grace, alive by grace. Grace alone.

 

And by grace, as I look at what I have and who I am, I see that I cannot be worthless. Because I have received grace – the gift of life, of forgiveness, of being restored to God through Christ alone – I know that I am valued even as I am not worthy.


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