“You do look ridiculous, Kelly. And you are beautiful and beloved.”
The voice of Grace wasn’t challenging the story I had been told by my shame. It was reminding me of the rest of the story.
This is how the voice of grace works. Its brilliance eclipses the genius of our shame-whispers. It doesn’t try to disprove the voice of shame. It doesn’t do a “Yeah, but.” It does a “Yes, and.” It disrupts all the internal debates, undermines all the second-guessing, and avoids all the interior conflict. It just says, “Yes, that may be true, but this is definitively true.”
It’s the brilliant, counter-intuitive, scandalous voice of Grace, whispering its truth at the edges of your being:
“No matter what, you are beautiful and beloved.”
How My Kids Didn’t Ruin Mass @ Carrots for Michaelmas
It’s the moments when I think my kids are the ultimate distraction that my parish family shows me that they are gifts of God’s grace. When the baby is fussy and the toddler is grumpy and loud and I think that surely the homily is going to be a desperate plea for our family to high tail it out of the church so everyone else can enjoy Mass in peace, the priest says, “Look around you. Look at all the babies and children in Mass today. As I’ve been hearing the sounds of infants and children this morning, it reminds me of the amazing gift of new life. What a blessing. I am so glad they are all here.” Gift? Blessing? My kids could have passed themselves off as small dragons this morning, and you heard their whispers and shrieks as echoes of God’s grace?
Working Out "Quiet Time" @ Growing an Olive Tree
So often I wish I could sit and soak up scripture all day long, but the needs of living in this present age persist. My Mary heart has to turn to necessary Martha work.
I can't sit and read the bible all day, or lay on my face bathing in the Spirit under the fragrant sound of worship music like I could when I was single, or married without a child. Even the discipline of getting up and starting my day in with bible reading has become more of a memory than a reality as little hands paw all over me the minute the sun rises, "Can we get up, Ima? The sun's up now. I want cereal and cow's milk."
When Right Now is Just Right @ Redemption's Beauty
Two questions to define someone, three if you answer married. What kind of work do you do? Are you married? What does your spouse do for employment? That’s it.
There isn’t a steeple overhead and we’re not sitting on pews but I’m seeing a picture of His church. A gathering of His beloved: the broken, the discarded, and the destitute in need of a Savior. I don’t have a pulpit but I want to get up and tell them that they aren’t defined by a number, a job description, an illness, an injury or a marital status.
And neither are you. Like Esther, you are more, so much more.
I remember a good question being "what is your story?"
ReplyDelete