The Grace of God

The grace of God is greatly abounding in my life this week.

For those of you that don't know me well I will fill you in. Math it is a simple four letter word... Math 136 I thought would be the death of me. Legit I have not had math since junior year in high school. Um that was seven years ago now, boy do I feel old.

So a few months back I take the math accue placer. God's grace placed me right into the math class I needed. I start the class insisting to my father that WE were taking math this semester. By God's grace I asked for help twice. Almost once a week I wanted to cry and slaughter my math homework, by God's grace I was able to complete and comprehend what I was learning. Once I thought I would do an entire week's worth of homework in three hours, by God's grace He gave me the time over the weekend to complete the homework in say 20 hours....

By God's grace, literally the hand of God. I passed math. Not only did I pass math, I understand college math. And God in His goodness blessed me with an A.

All I can say is I am blown away!! I truly never expected to receive such a grade, when I started out I was going to be extremely happy with a C.

BUT GOD.

Trials

Do you ever look for God's grace in the midst of trials? Well I can honestly that I typically don't. Usually I am so wrapped up in the trial that I don't pay attention to much else.

Well I had a blessed experience today. Today was probably one of the tougher days as of recent. All I can say is God's grace was so abundantly laid into this trial. I cannot explain in detail, but will still try to share.

I have a natural tendendancy to respond quickly in anger, or attitude. By God's grace today it was merely frustration. While there are a thousand other responses that may have been more appropriate, God's grace gave me the ability to turn to frustration not anger. I cannot tell you the blessing that was today. God's grace allowed me to walk away, not ignite the situation more, or say something rash. My God is so gracious to me.

I don't deserve the grace that is given to me daily, but all I can say is I am so thankful to be more aware of it. Being able to pick out specific parts of my day that are the directly the grace of God in my life, takes my breath away. He loves me. He desires a relationship with me. He desires me to grow in His knowledge and wisdom. He desires me to desire Him.

I need Him, every hour I need Him. I am so thankful that even when I forget I need Him, His grace is abundant!

Praising the Lord that for once I turned to Him in the midst of a trial. Baby steps I tell you baby steps.

Iron sharpens Iron

It's great how life gives you options, sometimes both options are great, just depends which greatness you will be blessed with.

Today I chose to meet a friend for coffee instead of hit the gym. This is just what the doctor ordered. Today was no day out of the ordinary, we meet up often to catch up on life and of course enjoy Starbucks. She is one of those friends that you can share anything with, like that time I wrote incontinence instead of inconvenience to directors at work, or the fact that sometimes I think eggs are dairy are things I can share with her and we laugh. But she is also the friend that I can text when I am really struggling and she will be my prayer warrior.

We share our typical week in a nutshell, the craziness of life. But I think one of the things I love most is that we are able to encourage each other spiritually. I love that we are able to challenge each other's thinking, share those light bulb moments from the sermon, and relate how we are growing to what we are learning with our church family.

We sat for literally hours today most of the time spent examining the life that surrounds us and how that relates biblically. Area's we see room for improvement, area's that we are so greatly blessed by. It was the overwhelming consensus today that we are immensely blessed by our Church family. We have a pastor that is diligent in preaching the Word, there are ladies willing to invest in our lives (men too, but thinking of Titus 2), there are young ladies that we can invest in that we can share life with, a worship leader that hits the nail on the head every week (it is all I can do to contain my excitement when we sit through a song) the list seriously goes on. WE ARE BLESSED, so if you are church family and reading you are truly a blessing!

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This past week in the sermon pastor asked us to get real with our sin. Repentance of sin isn't oh hey so I kind of thought a bad thought today, but repentance to God and being real with each other should be more like, I am a wicked sinner who saw this lady at the store today and I judged her because she wore black with navy blue. (Yes I am that person that does not like black and navy blue!) Don't sugar coat your sin, sin is sin. So next I am planning to share the real me, the messed up sinner who is no doubt wicked. I am humbled, humiliated, and excited all the same to share. The wickedness of my heart will truly be shown (humbling/humiliating), but the chains of thinking sin should be kept hidden as if I don't sin and the need to display some mask of perfect Christianity will be gone. I am a wicked sinner that loves my Lord and savior. I need grace daily. It is about time I fess up to the reality of sin in my life and start specifically repenting! I am thankful that I will have accountability in this journey. I am most of all thankful that I have a God that has shown me grace in times I don't deserve it, love when I am hateful, persistence when I rebel, desires me even when I don't desire Him, and most of all GOD HAS SAVED ME FROM MY SINS, all to Him I owe.

Last time I referred to the struggle of sin as a pipe.... lets just say I think I have found a few more leaks I was previously ignoring...