Wednesday, February 25

But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

2 Corinthians 12:9

A little book tucked away on the shelf of a seminary bookstore shouted with its title to hold the secret to "authentic, grace-filled relationships.” In it, Dr. Larry Crabb is quoted: "We are not our problems.  We are not our wounds.  We are not our sins.  We are persons of radical worth and unrevealed beauty.  If we face ourselves fully, we will be broken by what we see … but the silver is there.  Something brilliant and intact gleams through the stain of our brokenness."

Dr. Crabb's words are a wonderful reminder of grace. Grace is the marvelous mystery of God acting in our lives to do things we can't do on our own. There is wholeness in the grace of God – a completion that makes up for our failings. The wonder of God's grace is that our brokenness is not the final word nor does it define us. 

The difficulty for us as humans is to allow this truth to seep into the crevices of our guilt-prone souls.

Grace is the love of God pouring over our unloveliness and the forgiveness found through Christ constantly renewing us from the inside out. The grace of God is Light in the darkness, Hope to the hopeless, and Peace to the restless, and it is found in the stark beauty of Jesus' death and resurrection.

grace speaks of restoration

bringing wholeness to the broken

without a trace of hesitation.

so it is without a single token

of shame i come to the table

to hear words of redemption spoken.

my heart fully open and able

receives forgiveness and healing

without need for blame or label.

the light of the savior revealing

only hope for my wounded heart

the altar of grace not concealing

the ugliness found in some parts.

but in grace i find myself whole

in his resurrection i find a fresh start

a place where gratitude fills my soul.

When our focus is on the good grace of God found in the death and resurrection of Jesus, our whole perspective changes. We may still struggle with the wrong shape of certain things in our lives, but in that struggle we will begin to see the glimmer of His Light shining through the cracks.

In what ways has the grace of God restored you to wholeness?

Almighty God, the One who created the order of the heavens and set the galaxies in motion with his word, may you redeem the chaos of our lives and restore us to wholeness once again so that we reflect the power of your grace made perfect in our weakness through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Carla Jordan