January 14

#20   I glimpsed the startling grace of God when I’m given time to be a “stay-at-home-mom” and time to reflect, journal, study the Word, go to bible study, be in a life-giving and life-support small group… why and how did I get this grace?  Only Jesus…

But then I read Beyond Words by Frederick Buechner about grace.  He wrote, “Grace is something you can never get but can only be given.  There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberry and cream.  A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams.  Most tears are grace.  The smell of rain is grace.  Somebody loving you is grace.  Loving somebody is grace.  Have you ever tried to love somebody?”

#21  Another glimpse of the grace of God is my sweet mother, celebrate her birthday today.  She raised me in the church, our second home.  I remember as a young child running through the large sanctuary with the high-huge stained glass window on the back wall…bright colors of blue, purple, red and especially yellow in the shape of a sun as rays of sun shooting through them that reached half way through what seem to little me, the huge holy place. Not only did the sun shine through that amazing piece of art, but the Son did, too.  And there were stained glass windows on another wall portraying different stories in the bible that I studied for a long time trying to piece it together.  And all during those times, as I studied those majestic shapes and colors and stories, mom practiced the organ.  I remember hearing the melody of God’s goodness rolling through the pipes and hearing her tiny fingers pressing the keys and her tiny feet pumping the petals.  God and the stained glass windows looked so big and us so small.  That’s the gift of a glimpse of the startling grace of God…