One of them is my long-time best friend Elisa, whose friendship and guidance and experience and help and prayers have been my member-care-therapy-counseling for a life-time of things, helping me be as healthy and free as a dear and godly friend ever could.
The other is her dear mama, who is a praying woman and an insightful friend, full of wisdom and experience and always at work at healing and healthy, even when you're just hanging out.
I am SO thankful they are here. It is the end of the semester, I have been incredibly sick this week (like, in bed, and you know that doesn't happen easily :) , this is an intense season of life, and godly, long-time, wise counsel, transparent friends are needed!
Being counselors, they are always both using all that good therapy vocabulary, which if you've ever received good therapy, mostly includes a lot of really good questions. Why do you think that is? and Do you think that is something you are responsible for? and Why do you think you respond that way?
But the other night Deb asked me a question I'd never heard before, and God's brought it to mind many times.
She was talking about transition, and shared times from throughout her life when she knew it was time for a change because some task or ministry she had been excited about she realized she had now "lost her grace" for...she wasn't passionate about it anymore, no longer had the energy to do it, etc.
Have you lost your grace?
Has the passion moved on? Has the fire extinguished? Has the well run dry? Has the vision changed?
And I know it wasn't what Deb intended, but all I keep picturing is Jesus, born that night.
Friends, awe with me. From the dawn of time, we have been HIS grace.
And BY His grace, after countless years of men following after their own ways and ignoring their Grace, God did NOT give up...having NOT LOST His Grace. By Grace, He sent His most precious and perfect Son. A baby, a dark and cold night.
And they sought Him, and grace was found.
To this moment, God has not lost His grace on us. We people have never stopped being his passion. His fire has not extinguished, His well has not run dry, His vision has not changed: We are His creation, made in His image, and He wants us, dearly, for His own. Do we remember that? You, family, ARE His Grace.
He has held His grace, and even sent it...He has manifested His grace and still freely gives it.
I have been searching for Christmas this year and I have found it.
Have we "lost our grace" for the very thing God's grace is FOR? May it never be!
May He kindle in our hearts this season His GRACE...from the creation to the cradle to the cross, and may He rekindle in our lives His great grace for the lost.
May it never be said that we have lost our grace as His children.
And if maybe we have...I pray that as we seek Him this Christmas, that we will find our grace.
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