MESSY GRACE
Grace is such a pretty word and conjures up pretty images in our minds but the reality in my Christian walk is that as true grace works in my life it isn’t always pretty, it can even be messy. I spent so many years in “survivor mode”. As a solo mum with 3 very young children everything became about my ability to get things done, to provide, to protect and to create some kind of security. It shaped my thoughts and actions and my ability to let anyone, including God, in. But God has shown me a different way and it’s been a journey to let grace mess up my self reliance.
As I sought more of God he revealed to me the way we women can glorify ‘busy’. We glorify it in our minds, with our schedules and use of time, in conversation, even in the small talk. “How’s your week been?” Who hasn’t answered “oh just busy” and what proceeds is a comparison on how busy we’ve all been. So I became aware in my conversations not to glorify busy. I made a conscious decision not to participate, then to steer conversation away from it. Next was a conviction regarding rest. I started to build a growing list of reasons why keeping a Sabbath should be part of my worship and the biggest of these reasons that God put on my heart was to go to a deeper place of trust.
My family, my future are in God’s hands. It’s not going to fall apart if I rest for a day. I trust Him and I can trust his grace. Recently this understanding developed more and I now know that as I rest every week I am reminding myself that I do not and can not earn my salvation nor increase the love he has for me (read Hebrews 4). As I celebrate Sabbath with my family I am celebrating a grace I did not deserve. A grace I can not earn. A grace that is free. And for me at least it’s a grace that came and made a mess of all that I thought and believed. It made a real mess of what I believed I needed to be and to do. It turned me upside down, changed where my value lies, and made me face the “I just can’t without you Lord” reality that King David so beautifully puts into the poetry of the psalms. And I am so glad it did.