Friday, December 12, 2008

New Things

One issue I am really struggling with is grace. Shocking, I'm sure. I don't understand how blessings are viewed as God's grace or mercy, because if there are no blessings, does that mean there is no grace or mercy from God? And I'm talking about the easy-to-spot blessings like money, a big house, stable job, good health, etc.

We started reading 'What's so Amazing about Grace' together and outloud to each other. So far, it's a good book. We read two chapters and some things started to click in my mind. I realized that perhaps our grace right now is knowing that we do want to be together and that we will work to stay together. In our lives, we know of too many couples that are riddled with divorce and infidelity, and that grieves us because we don't understand. As we were reading this book last night, I started to think to myself -- would I appreciate my husband as much as I do if we had not chosen to open our home, had to have 2 surgeries, both started new jobs over the past year? Would I respect my husband the way that I do if I had not seen him work so hard, and seen both of us work so hard, to pay off all of the debt that I've created?

So I'm asking God -- is this your grace in our lives? Is it your grace to be married to a man that I deeply respect and am humbled by his attitude (most days)? Is it your grace to walk through this debt so that we can be confident of our vows? Is it your grace to struggle through this debt to be sure that you are the God that you say you are?