Grace…
Grace, The unmerited favor of of God towards us.
This topic has come up a lot lately…through devotions, study, a class Aaron and I are taking…
Grace.
The acceptance of grace and the giving of grace. Is one easier than the other?
I know this will be a “shocking’” statement, but I have been in this hallway season for a M.I.N.U.T.E.
This season has called for a lot of grace. My emotions, my thoughts, sometimes my day to day…the periods of “calm/normalcy” are not the normal here. I am emotional…exhausted and really struggling in this day to day up and down, all over the place, spin me around…BLESS.
I have wept to Him for grace almost daily. I have had to ask people I love for it regularly…just to need it again and AGAIN.
Giving it, the easy part. Accepting it, the hardest.
I know I am not alone in that accepting part. We don’t deserve it. Not a single one of us. For me it is even harder to accept when I know I am failing almost everyday. That is not an easy place to be. Knowing that you are overly emotional, extremely triggered and your fight or flight is at an all time high.
That isn’t to say that I am not having good days…some days I don’t wake up on an 8 on the 1-10 scale of anxiety…some days I don’t wake up after a horrible night of insomnia…some days I can take an almost deep breath and feel the brief glimpse of normalcy…
But the days that I open my eyes at an 8, I almost start it in tears…then I rally, move into hyper focus and get stuff done. That is what you do, you get it done and it is like running on the edge of a cliff with like 3 inches for your foot to hit the ground and you must stay in a straight line…smiling and being “okay”.
You have the people in your life that you know have expressed that you should just be “better”. You have the people in the trenches with you. Then you have the people that do not care that you thought would…
The pin drops, the panic attack moves in, the tears fall and you feel like you are back in the room listening to your dad cry out in pain. You are back in the room while he takes his last breath. You are then pushed back into a room where you come to, a million tubes down your throat and people telling you that you were found unresponsive. You are then pushed back a few more years where you felt the pain of lies and deception. You are then pushed back…
Triggers…the psychological stimulus that prompts involuntary memories of previous traumatic experiences.
But Grace…the unmeasurable amount He gives to me in these moments…begging Him for a moment of rest…asking why over and over…falling apart and not being able to handle one more….and He just wraps me in it. The unmeasurable love and grace of God is all I have.
I don’t deserve it and most days it is hard to accept that He gives it…but because of Him, on the days it is really hard to accept it from those who love me, it is a little easier. When you feel like you are apologizing for being emotional, for falling apart all of the time, the guilt of needing grace sets in…
But because of Him. Because of His unconditional love and grace. Because He has given it over and over and loved me still…I can look to those who love me here on earth and know that they give because He has given. That they are a picture of that love…
I am His. Because I am His, I am forgiving before I fall, loved unconditionally and give the unmerited, undeserving grace in the moments I least deserve it.
For it is by grace I have been saved…
