I AM SURROUNDED BY GRACE

Life is short.  None of us know how long we will be alive on this earth.  Why are we wasting so much time being angry, offended and separated from loved ones?  With all Sean has been going through this lesson for me rings so true.  Family and friendships are so important, too important to allow differences to separate us!  

I am Surrounded by grace.

 My girls (yes Meghan is one of my girls.  I didn’t give birth to her but she is my daughter), my granddaughters, my female tribe that surrounds me is a force to be afraid of.  Together we can do mighty things for God and our family.  We have fought sicknesses together, we have praised God together, we have supported each other through many trials and storms.  The thing about these girls is we all stand together.   We may not vote the same, we may not discipline our children the same way, we may not agree on everything except one big thing….WE ARE FAMILY!  The old saying…United we stand, divided we fall is one of my strong beliefs.  

We are family, there will be differences.  God made us all unique.  How boring would life be if everyone was exactly the same?  If everyone believed the same?  If everyone voted the same? If everyone looked the same?  That would be terrible.  But what is also terrible is allowing our differences, our unique qualities, to divide and destroy families and friendships.  Do we really expect everyone to believe as we do?  And if they don’t than we can’t be friends or be around them?  What ever happened to grace?

If God can give us grace and accept us with all our unique quirkiness, why can’t we accept others?  I mean truly, God knows our deepest, darkest secrets.  You know those secrets we try to hide from God and others?  You know those sins we are so ashamed of that we have a hard time even confessing them to God?  He knows them all, He knows us better than we know ourselves.  In fact He knows we’re honing to sin before we do, yet He gives us grace when we believe in His Son Jesus Christ.   If He can give us grace, why can’t we give grace to our family and friends?

I sit back and think about my children and all the mistakes they have made in their lives, yet I give them grace.   Why?  Well they give me grace.  I was not the perfect parent, not even close.  I screwed up, I forgot things I should have remembered, I yelled when I shouldn’t have, and so on and so on.  Life is messy and we are all unique failures.  Why not allow grace to flow through us to other unique failures like ourselves?