Grace

It's been a funny year for me this year. In some senses I think I've felt God's presence more this year than I ever have. In other senses the human part of me has experienced a lot of the 'challenges' that life throws at you- loneliness and solitude have visited more than I care to divulge! I find myself often disappointed in human nature. The last couple of weeks a number of situations have occurred that have torn at my heart. We can be really unkind as people- knowingly and unknowingly.

I've been trying to sell my car, and I very nearly got scammed last week, by a man posing to buy the car for his son. He was just setting out to rip me off. That's a long story girls, but again I found myself really disappointed and questioning why people do these things. A Christian acquaintance of mine up here, made some really nasty comments about me this past week with were really uncool, and again I found myself questioning why we do this to each other. Isn't it about love? grace? How disheartened I feel at all the selfishness, dishonesty and cruelty. How easy is it to get resentful of all this and become bitter. I so don't want to live like that. Lately I feel like I'm watching my own movie though with people just throwing stuff at me. It's been a real barrage of things just presenting themselves to me and I feel totally out of control watching all this occur in front of me. It's hard not to hold on to the feelings that this naturally brings up. Instead though, I'm choosing to turn it around. I'm praying for the scamming man! and the others that are doing these things. God reminds me that that none of us are perfect. I'm far from it so who am i to cast the first stone?

This year has been by far my roughest year (roll on 2010), but as I reflect on it I see God's steady hand with me. This morning in one of our 'conversations' He told me that He is here, and that He walks with me through every moment. He sees the disappointments and tears that others don't. He will never leave. How amazing is He that He still has time to care about lil old me! I think it's cool that He cares about the man who was trying to rip me off; about the friends who are unkind or the people who are not thoughtful. It reminds me that it's all about Him. None of us deserve grace, that's why it's grace.

So this long-winded grat and it's roundabout way it just that- I'm thankful for His unfailing love; for His grace and for His refining in times like these. Whilst it's hard to see at the time, I know that He is going to use all of these experiences for His purpose- so that's pretty cool.

tam