Pure Grace

I love it when God meets me in unexpected places. It always reminds me how involved He is in the details of my life. Last week Neil and I packed our bags and headed to CA for one more family wedding fiesta. My cousin Blake married his Cal Poly sweetheart Stephanie at a beautiful wedding nestled in the Northern CA redwoods. Neil and I have visited Southern CA together three different times. I was born in Mission Viejo, CA so it's always fun to go back there and retrace memories from my childhood. This trip though, was our first trip to Northern CA and it included a visit to the city where I lived during my junior high and high school days.

As the trip approached I found myself twisting into knots. I hadn't been back to that city since October of my freshman year in college. My roommate and I traveled back to our high school for that post-graduation football game that everyone feels the urge to attend at some point. You know what I'm talking about. After leaving high school, I think we all return at least once to see if it still feels the same. It didn't feel the same and it only served to remind me how glad I was to be done with that season of my life.

We all have those moments in our past that make us cringe when we recall them. The content of the moment may vary from person to person, but we all get that deep-in-the-pit-of-our-stomach pang upon recollection of some of our more dingy moments. I had some, ok many, of my most dingy moments in high school. So I'm sure that you can predict my level of excitement at returning to that place... somewhere like -100 on a scale of 1-100!

I talked all of this over with my counselor right before I left on my trip. I didn't want to be bothered by returning to my home in N. CA. I wanted to be excited about taking my husband to see some of the landmarks of my teen years. Beyond that I had worked really hard to come clean before the Lord in my post-high school years. I knew and believed that I was a new creation in Christ "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone (glory!), the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17. But I still couldn't shake the nagging fear that I would bump into some skeletons with my husband at my side during this trip.

I promise that this will all tie together with God showing up in small places...I had to give some background for it to be meaningful!

As usual, my counselor offered up some morsels of wisdom for me to chew on. She told me that when I looked back at those "dingy moments" (my term) I needed to give myself grace. She said that people often look back at mistakes made in their youth and they evaluate them from an adult perspective. When we make mistakes in our youth we are making them with the limited cognitive and emotional resources that youth have. She told me to go sit in a youth group meeting and observe the teens there to give me some perspective on how I was at that age! I can't keep beating myself up as an adult for choices I made as a teen, no matter how blatantly sinful they were. She ended with telling me to spend time dwelling on the good memories while I was there and to give myself a lot of grace when I was confronted with any not so good memories.

I felt better and I even became excited at showing Neil around. We arrived in San Ramon on Thursday. I planned to take Neil around on a tour the next day. Thursday night we met with our dear friends the Breaults. They are those friends that no matter how long it has been, when you gather together it's as if no time has passed. I didn't want the evening to end, but unfortunately my body was ready to leave before my heart was. It had been a long day of traveling and by 11pm Neil and I figured we should go. As we headed out the door Daney (Mrs. B), hugged me and presented me with a little gift bag. Inside the sweetly wrapped bag was a bottle of lotion and the name of the lotion was...PURE GRACE!

I got in the car and just sat there stunned. God had given me a big reminder in a small gift. when I got back to the hotel I opened the bag and took out the bottle. The description on the back said "Pure Grace is the clean smell of soap and water, the memory of fresh air woven into a set of crisp, white cotton sheets, a cold deep breath on a snowy winter night, the best summer morning you have ever known, the one white T-shirt that feels better than all the rest… " What a fabulous reminder of the grace lavishly bestowed on us from the Lord!

The next morning as we prepared to tour some of my old stomping grounds, I rubbed the lotion onto my arms and neck. As I inhaled the clean, fresh, smell of Pure Grace, I reminded myself to allow God's grace to wash over any dingy moments that I stumbled on throughout that day. Isn't that just like our God to put a small bottle of "grace" in my path when I most needed a reminder of the overflowing grace that He gives? Where has He showed up in your life lately? He's very creative, so keep your eyes open and remember to STOP (savor the observable presence) each day.

Lesson Learned

I made a big mistake today. One that I hope never to repeat again. I had a busy day today full of "to do"s. One of stops was Sam's Club. We don't have one in Pearland yet, so I stop in Sugar Land when I can. One of the items that I frequently buy is wine. Neil and I love our Yellow Tail, and Sam's Club has the big bottles for a small price. On my way to the doctor's office I stopped and bought two bottles of wine. One white and one red. I then proceeded to the doctor's and then on to my parents' house. All the while I left the two bottles of wine in the car. Not only were they sitting in the hot, sweltering, car, they were sitting in the backseat. When I was driving home I thought that I smelled faint hints of wine in the air. Must just be the scent escaping the bottle in the heat right? WRONG! I got home only to find that the heat had melted the seal on the red wine and popped the cork. My back seat was filled with RED wine. It just couldn't have been the white wine, because I'm just not that lucky. Remember, this was a huge bottle and there was only about two glasses worth left in the bottle. So, what choice did I have? I grabbed our small upholstery cleaner and went to work, in the hot, sweltering, garage. 20 minutes later I was soaked with sweat and intoxicated by the smell of the wine. I cleaned up everything that I could. It looks pretty good at the moment...thank you gray upholstery...but I'm sure that as the days go by the wine that soaked deep into the cushions will surface. Between the heat and humidity, I'm not exactly sure when the wine smell will go away. If you are lucky enough to ride in my car anytime soon, please know that I wasn't drinking wine before you got in. Next time it's hot and I want to buy some wine I won't leave it in the car.

Lesson learned!

It's Raining...It's Pouring...

It's raining. Edouard, or as the news channels say ed-WARD, has arrived. It's not nearly as bad as they had been forecasting. It just seems like a gray, rainy day. The type of day that makes you want to sit by the fireplace with a cup of coffee (or a chai tea latte in my case) and read a book. Unfortunately is far too hot to turn the fire on and I have a counseling appointment scheduled this afternoon, so my cozy day at home is not going to happen.

Edouard has stirred up memories from 2005 when Hurricane Rita threatened Houston. It was a really stressful experience. I was living at my parents' home at the time and my dad was out of town. Myself, my mom and my brother David were in charge of preparing the home for a possible disaster. We had never been through a hurricane before so we didn't have past experience to rely on. We just did what we thought should be done. We moved furniture, covered windows, stacked mulch bags (we didn't have sand bags, so my mom brilliantly thought of using mulch bags instead). We even covered the front door and window with a large piece of carpet. We didn't have plywood, so we figured that the carpet would at least provide some protection for the glass around the entry.

After we prepared the house, all we could do was sit and wait. I can vividly remember sitting in the family room, watching the news, and waiting for the storm. At the time I knew in my heart that we were going to be ok. I knew that it might be scary, it might be messy, and it might be difficult, but I had faith that we would make it. But although I knew that we would make it through the hurricane, I still didn't want to go through the storm. I didn't want to feel the fear and do the dirty work. I kept thinking that I wish I could escape it. I didn't want to have the "experience". I felt a little angry that God was "making" me go through this storm.

Isn't that how we usually feel when we face a "storm" in life? It can be a health problem, financial issue, loss, relationship difficulty, or a number of any other "storms". We know somewhere in our heart that God will bring us through and we know that in the end we will have learned something valuable. But, I guess the question is, do we believe that what God has for us at the end of the storm is worth our pain and struggle to go through the storm? I'm not saying that we necessarily get a choice upfront about whether or not we want to be in the middle of a storm. After all, sometimes we just wake up and find ourselves there. I am saying though that our belief about God and His ability to redeem any storm in our lives for His purpose determines the burden that we will have to carry on our back through the storm. Wouldn't it be better to face a storm knowing that, if we allow Him to, God will carry the burden of making sure that this raging, explosive, unpredictable storm can be used for Kingdom purpose?

James tells us to:
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. " James 1:2-4

I say all of this because God is just now shedding light on some of the good that has come from the health storm that I have been caught in for the last two years. Isn't it funny that once the clouds begin to clear, God's light can shine through and highlight all of the ways in which He's using the storm for good? Often when we are in the thick of the storm there's no light shining down and all we can think about is how much it stinks to be caught in a storm. I don't know about you, but I did not consider it joy when the clouds covered me and I was engulfed by the rain, wind, and thunder of the storm. I wonder too, if when we are in a storm, we become so focused on the storm details that we miss any small breaks in the clouds that God might give us to remind us that He is still there working His good. We're too upset or anxious to see the break because we're already looking ahead towards the next storm band.

I wish that I had looked up more often in the midst of my storm. I'm sure that God broke the clouds a few times to try to encourage me, but I wasn't always looking for Him. As always though, God is faithful even when we are not. As Edouard neared the coast on Monday, I noticed that I was really very calm compared to other times that hurricanes or tropical storms have threatened the Texas coastline. Hopefully that confidence is mirrored in my spiritual life as well. Hopefully, the next time that I face a health storm I will be able to face it with less anxiety and more faith. And hopefully I will remember to keep my eyes open for the breaks in the clouds.