just finished...Victim of Grace

nothing sweeter than a sunny summerish morning to savor these words...(coffee not pictured)

Just finished this gem--Victim of Grace by Robin Jones Gunn. I can't say for sure if I'd love it as much had I not grown up physically and spiritually with Robin's books. This was her story, painted with the same mastery of words that have touched so many lives. I cried, I laughed, I looked back with understanding and forward with hope. I was reminded how intimately God is involved in our lives.

I'll share one story. Robin dreamed of being a missionary. She wanted more than anything to travel to Africa and she applied for a laundry supervisor position at a Kenyan-based mission organization. She was turned down and she was crushed.

Years down the road she could see with clarity that God's dream for her was to use her words, her stories, as the missionaries. His plan was different yet so much better.

Robin did travel to Kenya one day. Adventuring with a Kenyan friend, they drove by a river and saw two women washing clothes in a river. Robin stopped, and she asked one of the women if she could wash clothes for her. The woman agreed (I would guess bemusedly), and this is what Robin wrote after she left the river:

Robin's friend said, "'It was not what you were created to do, was it?"

'No, it wasn't. I can say with full assurance that being a laundry supervisor was not God's will for my life,' I [Robin] smiled back at her.

We ambled on down the rutted road for a stretch, and all I could think was how passionately I wished that every woman could put her hands into the bucket of her unanswered prayers. What a powerful thing it was to hear the affirming echo in my heart that God's ways are perfect. He has plans for us that are bigger than any dream or whim we could ever wish for ourselves."

Sometimes, I think we can see God's fingerprints in our lives better through someone else's story. Whether that be a biography, autobiography, or fiction. This is true for me. I would heartily recommend this book. If we are going to be a victim, let us be victims of grace.

The word grace has surfaced around me as of late. Bubbling and bursting, not to be ignored. God has much to untangle in my performance driven, perfectionistic heart, but I want to feel His grace. Really feel it, know it, soak in it.

Grace.

Grace.

Grace.

Victim of Grace nudged me in the direction I need to walk. Thanks, Robin.

a Slinky in a tree

Walking to my car after working out this afternoon my eye caught the forlorn sight of this stranded, stretched-out Slinky. I literally paused in the street, cocked my head to the side, a rush of empathy surging through me. 

I felt like that Slinky. I was one with the Slinky--out-of-whack and in a place where I wasn't quite sure how I arrived at such a place, in such a state. I saw a clear picture of my week. I've been stretched beyond normal capacity. Tangled. Messy. Paralyzed. Overwhelmed, but not sure how to proceed. The "May vortex" has arrived early.

(Seriously, has any Slinky in the history of the world ever been quite the same after getting tangled up? And they always get snarled up at some point. Disentangling a slinky from itself if far more challenging than a Rubik's Cube.)

So often I am my own worst enemy. If I could only untangle myself from myself, maybe it would be okay. I beat myself down. I feel the kinks that don't seem to get worked out of my life. I might as well be a gnarled Slinky dangling precariously from slender tree branches, that's how stable I feel. And man, I just keep sinning. I hate it.

Paul's words echo in my head:

"For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate...For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing."  Romans 7:15,19 ESV

But thank the Lord, literally, for this:

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong."  2 Corinthians 12:9,10 ESV

I still resemble that Slinky. I still feel stretched and tangled. I don't understand how God uses my weakness, I'd rather He would use my strengths, although I know He uses these too. I'd rather not sin, but I know that to be impossible. So I will continue to boast in the Lord. I am nothing without Him, I've known this for many, many years. 

He is sufficient. 

So very thankful.