Gracefully Enough
We are thrilled to invite you to this week's blog post provided by Andrea Murphy, church planting pastor's wife, homeschooling momma of four children, ages 12, 8, 3, & 2. She says, "Life is busy... but busy means work... and anything "worth it" is worth working for!"
Andrea and her husband, Jeremy, pastor Access Church. They are the founding pastors, having launched Access Church in September of 2009. Andrea loves to read, write, bake yummy things, plan events for the people she loves, and create fun things from not much.
Gracefully Enough
"I'm just not enough for this. I don't have what it takes."
I don't know about you, but there are more days than I'd like to admit that this script fights for center stage in my heart and in my mind.
Those days that I feel that I could have done more. Should have.
Should have been more. Didn't measure up.
I didn't get "it all" done. And what I did... just didn't turn out like I had hoped.
Many days, at the end of the day, the echoing of ways I could have handled that better, things I should have said differently (or not at all) - just things that, given the opportunity for a do-over - would be done over - in a heartbeat.
I'm learning to respond to that echo.
That ever-increasing echo of doubt with these words.
His grace is sufficient. It's more than enough.
His grace is sufficient. It's more than enough.
His grace is sufficient. It's more than enough.
The grace of God is more than the temper flare, more than the half-completed list of things to do. His grace is more than the clothes that remain unfolded and un-put-away and more than the fact that the best-laid plans of moms and women seem to unravel at times.
His grace sent His son for me.
He saw enough IN me, to risk it all FOR me.
Me.
The fighting-for-order, scrambling-for-the-alarm, cooking, cleaning, fixing, rescuing, kissing, hugging, laughing, scolding, snuggling, slipping, falling, failing...
ME.
And you know - I think that if He thought I was worth it then, He probably thinks I'm worth it now.
So I choose His free-flowing grace.
He chose me and gave me the treasure of being close to Him.
And I get the privlege of choosing grace.
I. Get. To Choose.
I can pick GRACE!
I choose grace because the debilitation of condemnation will not get me up in the morning.
I choose grace because the thought and the hope for a second-chance tomorrow SURELY beats the dwelling-on of the misplaced and irresponsible word from yesterday.
I choose grace because he chose me... and I choose Him.
And life in Him means that my dependence is my strength.
My anchor holds.
Because my strength and my anchor is rooted in His grace for me.
Our hearts echo the heartbeat of acceptance and when that place of acceptance is found, that nod of familiarity, that arms-around-you-carrying-you-up-and-over.... when I can rest in that place of grace, the cruel measuring stick dissolves and I can see clearly that the truth of grace is NOT perfection.
It is both beautiful and a harsh reality that failure is inevitable and our lives require grace.
How we follow our Saving Grace through to the other side of that failure determines the measure of the FULLNESS of grace that we receive.
So there it goes.
Releasing.
Downloading.
Letting it go.
Letting the perfectionism go.
Letting the frustration of failure just fly on by.
Releasing all that I'm NOT to the winds of grace.
Graceful winds that blow through my soul, refreshing my heart. slapping the clean laundry in the breeze, and permeating every part of my could'ves and might'ves and should'ves...
Because as wonderful of a gift that TODAY is...
Tomorrow is full of grace - and it's already been accepted and applied.
That's some seriously amazing grace.
"Each time he said, 'My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.' So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ can work through me." 2 Corinthians 2:9 (NLT)
Copyright 2018 - Andrea Murphy