Laced With Grace

I’m the youngest child in a family of eight.  Consequently, when I was growing up there were always people around that I could count on to be there for me when I needed them.  However, inevitably as happens in life there were times when they let me down in spite of their well meaning intentions.  To be fair I’ve done the same also.

But it just goes to prove that no matter how good our intentions are we disappoint others.  We are human, we make mistakes and we unknowingly cause pain.  Sometimes it’s not easy to let go of the pain that others cause us even when it wasn’t deliberate.  We often want to hold on to it and allow the hurt to grow instead of letting it go.  We refuse to allow God to heal the wounds left on our heart or rid us of the disappointments we experience because of our expectations of others.

However in times like these we need to remind ourselves that the people we place our trust in are flesh and blood just like we are.  They make mistakes.  They say and do the wrong thing.  Only God alone is perfect.  In the words of the psalmist in God alone my hopes comes from…

⁵ My soul is quiet and waits for God alone. My hope comes from Him. ⁶ He alone is my rock and the One Who saves me. He is my strong place. I will not be shaken. Psalm 62:5-6 (NLV)

Does that mean we shouldn’t depend on our family, our friends, the people around us…? No it doesn’t. The world would be a lonely and depressing place if we had no one we feel we could count on.  It simply means that ultimately God is the only one in our lives who never fails.

Engrossed in the books lining the shelves of my favorite book store, I didn’t see  her standing there. Truthfully, if I had, I may have timidly turned and gone the other way before she spotted me.   The leader of our very large Bible Study group, she is  a woman I deeply respect and admire.  The depth of her wisdom and her ability to communicate it have  ministered to me in ways that can’t be measured. Our eyes met. She smiled, “Hi Linda. How are you?”  My dumbfounded response was, “I can’t believe you remember my name.”

I believe there  is a yearning in every heart to be known – a recognition of our worth. How else to account for this counting of comments and followers, the posting of videos and pictures, the recording of even the smallest of events in our daily lives. A simple record of our family’s history can suddenly take on a life of its own – a competition with huge numbers the reward.

See me; notice me; approve of me. It is the cry of the human heart. We fret when we think we have somehow failed; when we feel small and less than everyone else. We try harder.  It is a game we cannot seem to win.

The great Creator sees the longing in our hearts and whispers the ancient words. “You are mine. I love you. I love everything about you. You are perfect in my sight because I see you through Him. You don’t have to do one single thing to win my approval. You already have it. ”

Who can take it in? This One, who placed the stars in the heavens and knows each one by name. This One who spoke and the worlds came into being. This One who holds all things in His hands – hands that span the galaxies. This One who is greater, higher, wiser, more powerful than our minds can take in – He knows your name.

There is a song by Tommy Walker that speaks about this miraculous love:

He Knows My Name

I have a maker, He formed my heart

Before even time began, my life was in His hands.

I have a Father, He calls me His own

He’ll never leave me, no matter where I go.

He knows my name; He knows my every thought.

He sees each tear that falls, and He hears me when I call.

 “To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear His voice, and He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”

John 10:3 NASB

Blessings,

Linda

The push of the days, they crash into one another. The busyness speeds minutes into hours, into seasons, and life spreads wing and fies. A new video game, a stop at two stores on the way home from work, homework in three progressions, and I hurriedly add the details of dinner. How much activity can be crammed into one evening, without something spilling over?

The plan was for the work to be done by 7pm to make way for family movie night: the fourth installment of Love Comes Softly. But life often happens to the best laid plans these days. It was 7:45 before we began, and after bedtime by the end. But how else will family time happen, if we don’t just squeeze it in?

The demands and the desires press hard against me and the clock mocks me with its tick-tocking. The toilet overflows, the man-child erupts, the showered girl needs a towel, and a mama simply tries harder, runs faster, to hold it all together.

The other day, we visited friends who had experienced a healing that just may have saved his life. The wife sat quiet beside him, with the golden retriever who thinks he’s a lapdog sprawled across them both. Steve spilled forth his joy, and thanksgiving, and with humbled inability to put words to any more, he spilled the rest from his eyes.

As we listened, I watched a magnificent hummingbird through the picture window behind him. The petite gracefulness nothing short of a work of art. She perched on a branch for a while, then motionless hovering over the necter, then perched again quietly and effortless.

I think of the bird tonight. I have not hovered motionless and perched, effortless and quiet. But I want to be the beautiful bird that sucks necter from life with the poise and artistry. Instead I am an ant, who scrurries helter skelter after the boot drops. Right up and over those who are closest – but in my way, the crazy madness of the ant pile, biting, stinging. The high-pitch is because I’m not breathing from my diaphram. My chest aches, my ears ring, and my shoulders are a tight-rope.

I speak too many words, overflowing like the toilet. And I need Thee, O I need Thee. Every hour I need Thee.

While I mop up the contamination from the bathroom floor, I wonder how I will clean the contamination that overflowed my heart. The words from Haggai that flowed into that heart only two days ago bite and sting my spirit now. Because the impure indeed defiles what is pure when it touches it (Haggai 2:12-13). I have presented my members as an instrument of unrighteousness (Romans 6:13), and sown discord, not peace. I have looked into the mirror and walked away and forgotten Who I am to look like (James 1:23-24).

God disinfects with mercy and grace. Forgiveness, too. And a new day dawning tomorrow. He lifts me up–I am not an ant trampled under foot. And He humbles me–neither am I the hummingbird, beak dripping stolen sweetness. The bird God watches is the sparrow.

And I sing because I’m happy and I know he watches me.