Grace

Grace is a word I’ve been rolling around in my mind lately trying to understand it better. I have a book by Phil Yancey called “What’s So Amazing About Grace?” I found it to be, at the time of the first reading, life-changing. About the time of my divorce I really needed grace from God because I had failed badly. In time and with wisdom from the book I believe I discovered grace for the first time in my legalistic existence. I have a fabric of tales from many friends that could say they, too, have found grace. Maybe it took a few more failures or tries than others but all of us, at least from my vantage point, need grace. But, we live in a world full of ungrace it seems and how it is that once we discover grace we soon forget what it looks like as we get further from the point where we needed it the most and instead replace it with works that we presume will appease God and make him like us more because we are DO-ing things for him. Isn’t it true that while we were yet far from God he found us when we were undeserving? How could we ever dare think we have done something so valuable to merit God’s favor after the fact. Impossible. Having said all that, I look at my friend Tiana and see God’s hand on her. She, like all of us, have needed grace and sometimes we find it after failing a few times. Don’t we all? I like this picture of her with the iPod as we just quickly snapped a few at Aldridge Gardens.