EMBRACE His GRACE
This too shall pass.
Bloom where you're planted.
Time heals all wounds.
Those words feel MORE cliche when you're in the middle of a less than desirable season than they do on a Hallmark card. They seem cold and calloused. Unfeeling.
I DON'T *WANT* TO BLOOM HERE!----In *THIS* place.
and from where I'm standing.....from MY vantage point.....this doesn't look like it's passing anytime soon.
I'm weary. I'm broken. I'm helpless. EVERYTHING around me is unfamiliar. NOTHING is as I imagined it would be
This is not where I want to dig in my heels and camp. THIS is *NOT* my promised land.
I think of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. The Israelities in captivity during their exile. I think at times I can relate to their heartache, their disappointment. I am quick to surrender to the obvious reality that my expectations were not met and I have been let down. Surrendering to a victim mentality. It feels SO unfair.
I didn't WANT to be a widow raising 4 children on my own!!!!!!!!
I might as well have been shaking my fist at God. There. I said it.
.....and with those words and a few others came HOT ANGRY TEARS.
In that moment I didn't feel His reproach or scorn though I felt embarrassed.
I saw things differently......
I knew He was asking something of me.
"Will you embrace THIS as enthusiastically as you embrace all the things you WANT?"
Instead I am pushing His hand away-refusing His Grace-because THIS IS NOT WHAT I SIGNED UP FOR. This is not what I want.
EMBRACE? Embrace means to WELCOME. To CLING to. *willingly*
I run through my list of grievances with Him.
My list of hurts.
Those things which have left an inconsolable ache.
WILLINGLY embrace THIS?
Then I saw it.....I am not embracing the hurt. To do so would make me a victim and God a bystander. As if LIFE happens *TO* me.
I am embracing His GRACE.
His presence. I am admitting that even in THIS---------HE IS WORKING a DIVINE THING.
I am choosing the GREATER.
It's a hard thing to see His hand in the darkness. To sense His presence when the presence of the unforseen seems so much greater. The voices of doubt and fear, discouragement and panic seem so much louder. But I looked back and I could see it.
From the very first moment when my world crumbled under my feet I had EVIDENCE of Grace. It washed over me like a flood. Not for a MOMENT will He forsake me or leave me to do this on my own.
He doesn't ask us to embrace the heartache, fear, doubt and hurt......He asks us to embrace His grace. Not seeking rescue. But seeking to SEE things from HIS vantage point.....because He sees things we cannot possibly see. He knows things we may NEVER know. He asks us to CHOOSE to TRUST.
When we can do that we embrace grace, peace.....and we welcome His hand to do something in the midst of our chaos, in the midst of darkness that we couldn't have fashioned with our own hands. We want escape. He wants surrender.
I remember the day He asked me.....I could hear Him almost audibly....."Are you ready to trust me now?"
Do I TRUST HIM? I mean REALLY TRUST Him? Trust Him with the outcome, trust Him with those things I hold in my heart?
Trust that where He led me He did so with PURPOSE.
I had to let go and surrender those things that were beyond my control knowing that the will of God would not take me where the GRACE of God wouldn't SUSTAIN me.
TRUST leaves no room for fear or doubt, no time for planning and plotting an escape.
Just obedience and rest.
It sounds poetic.
Bloom where you are planted.
I am learning.
I have CHOSEN.
I have DECIDED.
I am EMBRACING GRACE.
When I embrace His grace I allow Him the freedom to do something {even in *THIS} that will take my breath away.......
Bloom where you're planted.
Time heals all wounds.
I DON'T *WANT* TO BLOOM HERE!----In *THIS* place.
and from where I'm standing.....from MY vantage point.....this doesn't look like it's passing anytime soon.
I'm weary. I'm broken. I'm helpless. EVERYTHING around me is unfamiliar. NOTHING is as I imagined it would be
This is not where I want to dig in my heels and camp. THIS is *NOT* my promised land.
I think of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. The Israelities in captivity during their exile. I think at times I can relate to their heartache, their disappointment. I am quick to surrender to the obvious reality that my expectations were not met and I have been let down. Surrendering to a victim mentality. It feels SO unfair.
I didn't WANT to be a widow raising 4 children on my own!!!!!!!!
I might as well have been shaking my fist at God. There. I said it.
.....and with those words and a few others came HOT ANGRY TEARS.
In that moment I didn't feel His reproach or scorn though I felt embarrassed.
I saw things differently......
I knew He was asking something of me.
"Will you embrace THIS as enthusiastically as you embrace all the things you WANT?"
Instead I am pushing His hand away-refusing His Grace-because THIS IS NOT WHAT I SIGNED UP FOR. This is not what I want.
EMBRACE? Embrace means to WELCOME. To CLING to. *willingly*
I run through my list of grievances with Him.
My list of hurts.
Those things which have left an inconsolable ache.
WILLINGLY embrace THIS?
Then I saw it.....I am not embracing the hurt. To do so would make me a victim and God a bystander. As if LIFE happens *TO* me.
I am embracing His GRACE.
His presence. I am admitting that even in THIS---------HE IS WORKING a DIVINE THING.
I am choosing the GREATER.
It's a hard thing to see His hand in the darkness. To sense His presence when the presence of the unforseen seems so much greater. The voices of doubt and fear, discouragement and panic seem so much louder. But I looked back and I could see it.
From the very first moment when my world crumbled under my feet I had EVIDENCE of Grace. It washed over me like a flood. Not for a MOMENT will He forsake me or leave me to do this on my own.
He doesn't ask us to embrace the heartache, fear, doubt and hurt......He asks us to embrace His grace. Not seeking rescue. But seeking to SEE things from HIS vantage point.....because He sees things we cannot possibly see. He knows things we may NEVER know. He asks us to CHOOSE to TRUST.
When we can do that we embrace grace, peace.....and we welcome His hand to do something in the midst of our chaos, in the midst of darkness that we couldn't have fashioned with our own hands. We want escape. He wants surrender.
I remember the day He asked me.....I could hear Him almost audibly....."Are you ready to trust me now?"
Do I TRUST HIM? I mean REALLY TRUST Him? Trust Him with the outcome, trust Him with those things I hold in my heart?
Trust that where He led me He did so with PURPOSE.
I had to let go and surrender those things that were beyond my control knowing that the will of God would not take me where the GRACE of God wouldn't SUSTAIN me.
TRUST leaves no room for fear or doubt, no time for planning and plotting an escape.
Just obedience and rest.
It sounds poetic.
Bloom where you are planted.
I am learning.
I have CHOSEN.
I have DECIDED.
I am EMBRACING GRACE.
When I embrace His grace I allow Him the freedom to do something {even in *THIS} that will take my breath away.......
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