All in Grace
When I was young, my family rarely went to a restaurant to eat. But on one special occasion, my parents took us to a restaurant that was filled with various buffets. Salad and fruit buffets were in one area. Vegetable and meat buffets were nearby. And my favorite, of course, were the dessert buffets that I remember as taking up an entire room. Lavish quantities of food were everywhere! I wanted to try it all (well, most of it), but the abundance was too great. I couldn’t even sample it all.
Good news: I awakened at 4:00am on a Saturday morning. Since I had debated making a three-hour drive to see my mother in assisted living, I decided to hit the road.
Ah, Job I thought as I contemplated the Womenary calendar last fall—not exactly the most uplifting book. Now wasn’t that just typical of 2020! But what better time than the present to consider the reality of suffering with all the ups and downs of that year and the February deep freeze of this. Let’s jump on into the deep end ladies, as suffering is indeed a deep subject.
It's that time of year. Often we consider the start of a new year, a new beginning. We get to begin again. We are trying to get healthy, get organized, exercise more, eat less . . . the list is endless, right? I agree that a new start is always a good idea. We should be trying to better ourselves in lots of ways.
My grandmother loved to give everyone in the family Christmas gifts. As much as possible she made them by hand. She might make house shoes, hot pan holders, or doilies. She might even go so far as to buy a pair of socks for each of the guys.
The higher up the mountain trail I hiked that summer morning, the more amazing the rugged beauty became. It is said that aspens quake; and so they do, their leaves in constant motion. Fresh new cones topped the evergreens. The rocky peaks of Mt. Timpanogos rose in the blue, blue sky, a touch of snow tucked in grey crevices. Marmots scampered; birds twittered; a moose lumbered across the meadow.
Wow! The children of Israel had made it through the Red Sea on their exodus out of slavery and Egypt. What a spiritual high!
What did they do in response? They trusted in God, they sang, and they praised him.
26 phone calls. Calls from my sister-in-law, Glenda, during the week leading up to my older brother’s death in May 2020.
Ernie suffered through Congestive Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) for seven years. He fought valiantly while isolated in his basement in Colorado.
Ladies, to be free it is imperative we grasp the very essence of our gift of freedom from the Father who called you by the grace of Christ (Galatians 1:6).
Feeling cooped up has been a universal experience this year. Sometime around the end of April I distinctly remember sitting on the back porch, listening to the sweet melody of the myriad of little birds feasting on my loquat tree—oh, to be a bird and fly free! It is at times like this that freedoms tug.
So, why was Paul so astonished (1:6) as to call his friends in Galatia foolish (3:1)? Not wasting words he jumped right in: you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all (1:6-7). He was adamant they understand the monumental personal transformation each had undergone, not by the law but by faith.
What a crazy year this has been. Like you I have floundered in the unknowns. But in the midst of sheltering-in-place like you, the redefined vision statement at GABC has rattled around in my brain: Transforming Lives with the Truth of Jesus. The downtime has been invaluable to chew on its singleness of purpose. Are we not, in today’s vernacular, looking at the great commission delivered by Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20?
When we moved to Texas from southern Ontario some 40 odd years ago, I was so excited about the prospect of planting a vegetable garden, nurturing gorgeous roses, and harvesting pecans from the tree in my spacious back yard. In Ontario I had managed a small plot of veggies and babied along some hybrid teas, considering the short growing season. Why, you couldn’t plant beans until the 9th of June! Sad to say though, in Tyler my efforts were in vain—the pecans were wormy and tough to crack, black spot got the best of the roses, rhubarb couldn’t stand the heat, the carrots were woody. But oh my, how the weeds did flourish. Since I had assigned weed control to my seven-and-eight-year-olds, they hated that garden. After one season of crop failure, we all quit.
I remember receiving chain letters as a young girl. The letter instructed me to mail additional copies to ten friends and add my own name to the bottom of the list—or something like that. The goal was to eventually receive letters from people all over the country. I always complied but, to my knowledge, never received any letters in return. Today news, prayer requests and other helpful information arrive via email, texts or other forms of social media. I often forward, cut-and-paste or even screen capture specific information to pass onward.
Our personal story begins when we receive God’s gift of grace. But who receives a gift without opening it? With the unwrapping come amazing surprises. We begin to experience things we previously could not have dreamed of. Even in the middle of life-as-usual, we see new dimensions and a new purpose. 2+2 now equals 7 or 10 or infinity. The only explanation is that the grace of God is at work in our life.
In the desert there was enough grace to feed Israel for another day. In the temple sacrifices there was enough grace to procure forgiveness for God’s people for another year. In the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, there was enough grace to forgive our sins, transform our lives and lead us to our eternal home.c
When we use the word “grace” to describe human interactions, it is often a lovely synonym for letting someone off the hook. When we apply grace to God’s character and actions, something else entirely comes into play. If it were possible to obtain a core sample of the heart of God, the analysis would come back as pure grace.
Christmas memories from my childhood are of cousins and sweet desserts, decorated trees and stockings, and the anticipation of opening gifts! What will I get this year? How many of those presents are for me?
Hop aboard, ladies. We’re taking a ride up the Oregon coast this week to see some amazing sights in God’s creation. First stop, a touch of grandeur in Redwood National Park. The California or coastal redwood, scientific name sequoia sempervirens, grows only in a narrow strip of land from northern California through Oregon, close to the coast yet not too close as it doesn’t like salt spray. Plentiful rainfall and summer fog of the region are just what they need—fog drip accounts for 30% of the yearly water supply. The “redwood” name comes from a bright red, fibrous bark when freshly exposed. They boast the tallest—Hyperion, at 379’—but cannot match the 102’ girth of the General Sherman, a non-related sequoiadendron giganteum in the Sierra Nevadas.*
