This is Amazing Grace

As we are getting back into the swing of life after winter break, I feel the Lord has been opening up my eyes and my heart to more of what grace is.  Like a lot of believers, I profess and depend on grace, but find myself being gradually lifted out of a pit I didn't even know I was still in, my eyes popping and fixed on vistas I didn't know I was missing.

I should start by describing my son Stefan's progress.  I just talked to his new health inclusion aide at school, and she told me that from the second day she was there, she noticed a significant improvement.  She said he reaches out to kids who are having emotional difficulties - a kid who has a diagnosis of autism.  He is talking more and more - a kid who barely had five words at age 2.  He is participating in circle time and interested in the centers - a kid who could hardly attend to any task for more than 2 minutes one year ago.

I feel I should stop myself.  It isn't the point all that he can do or cannot do, and I don't mean to boast.  It's just that there are real evidences that things are getting better for him, and for all of us.  We have had a LOT of therapy in the past month and a half, and it has come without extra out-of-pocket cost to us.  We couldn't have afforded it, but clearly, it is what Stefan needed, and its changing all of our lives.

I wrote a poem a few years ago about the struggles I was having as a mom - maybe it will bless someone.

Melancholy mama; will I ever get it right?
Seems like every time I try, things just never turn out right.
Respite and releases only bring me clarity:
Time just isn't what it used to be.
Lord, I know your spirit hovered over chaos deep
Caused the world I know to be; could you order life for me?
Something's got to give, and now I wonder if it's me?
Life just isn't what it used to be.

Parenting is still burdensome, but less so right now.  Having a burden eased, I have been thinking back over the past three years, and realizing how heavily it weighed, and I wasn't even aware of how much of a false belief it was.  Oh, the things I did for image control - thinking that if I could just make it look like I had it together, it would be so.  All of the shoulds - all the pressure; it was crushing me.   It strikes me, though, that perhaps it was crushing me so it could get squeezed out.  For here is what I am now realizing: just like I was living with a burden of all of the good things I wanted to do - right things! - but could not, so a lot of people are trying to be good, to prove themselves, without the proper aids.  Just as Stefan's therapists have come into our lives freely, willingly, invitationally, to work alongside us and enable a radically different life, so the Holy Spirit and the word of the Lord come into a life to enable a grace-empowered, God-focused, divinely fruitful existence.  

Almost greater than that sense of a doctrinal analogy was the sense of better understanding my limitations - limitations I didn't really understand that I had, and therefore was not very well able to communicate.  I am so very grateful that there are people in the world who choose to go into professions that help families with given sets of limitations.  It really sets them free.  Please keep on being God's hands and feet in a grace-starved world.  We are so thankful for you.

Here is the song that has been on my heart.  It is about God's Amazing Grace.

Thy Mercy

"But he gives us more grace." James 4:6a

I was meditating on God's very great grace toward me, grace that extends to every believer, and read these words from a favorite Bible teacher, "He is enough.  When you need more, you will have more.  When your woes are great, His grace is greater.  When our sins are vast, His mercy is deep.  We cannot exceed Him.  We cannot outrun Him."

I began to think of how "sin would reduce me to utter despair" if it were not for His mercy, which causes my spirits to revive, over and over again.

It reminded me of this hymn, which has been modernized by Sandra McCracken and recorded by Caedmon's Call and others.  Every single lyric I know, I can sing wholeheartedly.  I looked up the lyrics to double-check my memory and found that there were more lyrics than are included in the modern versions; not surprising since modern songs need to be cut to around 3 minutes or so and all six verses of a hymn sometimes cannot make the cut.  I like the editorial choices that were made, and yet the extra lyrics I could sing just as wholeheartedly.

His free grace alone, from the first to the last, has won my affection and bound my soul fast!


Thy mercy my God is the theme of my song,
The joy of my heart, and the boast of my tongue.
Thy free grace alone, from the first to the last,
Hath won my affection and bound my soul fast.


Without Thy sweet mercy, I could not live here.
Sin would reduce me to utter despair,
But through Thy free goodness, my spirit's revived
And He that first made me still keeps me alive.


Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart,
Which wonders to feel its own hardness depart.
Dissolved by Thy goodness, I fall to the ground
And weep for the praise of the mercy I've found.


Great Father of mercies, Thy goodness I own
In the covenant love of Thy crucified Son.
All praise to the Spirit, Whose whisper divine 
Seals mercy and pardon and righteousness mine.


Amazing grace.  How sweet the sound!

Within grace denied

I have been studying a portion of scripture that is reminding me that sometimes the things I don't have are worth more than having them.  I remember reading John Piper on the subject of grace within a circle of grace denied.  Here is an example from yesterday.  My son has been struggling with ear infections for most of his life.  Yesterday he took a nap in the morning instead of the afternoon, which I knew would take away my afternoon free time, and yet allowed me to get caught up on some housework left over from a busy weekend.  I felt the Spirit whisper, "This is my grace to you." When he woke up, it was lunchtime, and he was still a wreck, so I called and got him in that afternoon.  We were called back to the patient room in record time.  It turns out the office's phones were down all morning anyway, so even if I'd tried to call, I couldn't have gotten through until the morning; meanwhile, my son rested, I did not fret, and my daughter got some quiet play time.  I would wish my son did not have ear infections so frequently, but within that circumstance, I still felt God's grace at work.

Alright; so I let the dough "soak" about 22 hours, and it looks pretty much the same.  I am going to try to cook with it tonight, and will let you know what transpires.

Just a happy parting thought; yesterday after the chaos of a screamy child and a messy house, I looked up at this set of decorative shelves, and realized that every single object upon them, other than the "home"decoration, and including the weather radio, was a gift from a friend or relative.  I hadn't meant to make a shelf to display gifts, but I guess because they were special to me, I wanted to keep them in sight.