Discovering and Defining Grace

I love the way that Ann opens this chapter with a quote from Saint John of Avila that really summarizes the heart of this whole chapter.  The quote reads, "One act of thanksgiving, when things go wrong with us, is worth a thousand thanks when things are agreeable to our inclinations."

Chapter 5 - What in the world, in all this world, is grace?

So very much of this chapter is about discovering how to give thanks in the hard times.  The hard eucharisteo as Ann calls it.  She is faced with a potential tragedy, the first she records, since she's started her journey into gratitude and eucharisteo.

What have been the times in my life when I am suddenly forced to try to offer up eucharisteo in the face of tragedy, or real suffering?  How, and when, did I wrestle with the questions that Ann poses on p. 85, "What is good?  What counts as grace?  What is the heart of God?"  Have I really believed the answer the Bible gives us to these questions?

When Ann describes the Word (on page 87), with nail-scarred hands, who can hold us close and truly share our grief, I was reminded of the Lamentations 3:33 quote she references later about God "who does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow..." and also a teaching of Beth Moore's from her study on David which we did this fall.  Beth challenged us to not interpret or evaluate our circumstances and situations by what they are at face value and as only something that God has done or allowed but to also always use the perspective of who God IS (and was and always will be) when trying to make sense of our world and moments.

When we use the lens of the Word to remember who God is and what He is trying to accomplish, we will recognize, as did Ann on p. 94, that "it is not God who is in [our] debt but [we] who [are] in His great debt" and only then, will we be able to see the gift of every day - that we are even granted another day to look for His other gifts to us.

There have been times in my life and the lives of my family members that we have wondered why God has allowed, or brought, certain things into our circumstances.  It is when we stay focused on the Word, and in the Word, that we have been able to recognize "all is grace only because all can transform" (p. 101) and that God is using everything, even the ugly side of life, to bring about His work of beauty in our lives.  Only with that lens have we been able to be "always giving thanks to God the Father for everything..." (Ephesians 5:20).

What has been the ugly that you have seen, or are trusting God that you will see, transformed into His beautiful?  Where are you in the journey of recognizing what is grace?

Praying for you,

MS