Grace for Everyone

As a parent I could never be prouder.  I’m talking about my children. I guess at the moment specifically about my eldest. A young woman who gives and gives and keeps on giving. She has not been handed to her a perfect life, but she has dealt with it very well. From a distance I can often see her struggles but have no ability to help her out of them. Only encouragement along the way.

The journey of life for some can be harder than what others have to bear, or so it seems. But we all do have our difficulties. It’s often how we face them, our disposition, that matters.

Many of you know who I’m talking about. It’s Emma. You often see her present videos or podcasts in the HEART Ministry and she IS my right hand woman. I could not do this half as good without her.

Always generous, kind, caring, disciplined, gracious….. I could go on.

This last presentation just blew me away. It’s the weekly video titled, Grace that Restores.

Do you know what blew me away?

Her vulnerability! Her openness to share of herself to help and encourage others in their lives.

So RAW. So HONEST.

When it comes down to growing our relationship with Our God, reflecting upon this, that’s what God wants from us. Our being Vulnerable before HIM. Telling Him how we are going. How we are. How we see things. Good or Bad. Being Honest before Him. For it is only then, by our opening ourselves up, that we often can receive His Grace that is offered to us.

The parable of the Prodigal Son shows us this. It was ONLY when the son came back to the Father, turned towards Home, after his reflection upon his life that the restoring power of His Father could get to him. This Jewish boy who had squandered His Father’s inheritance (his half) had got himself into such a bad place – feeding the pigs (Remember Pork was a no no!) That in his VULNERABILITY he realised the TRUTH. Not yet the truth that His Father would welcome him home but that His Father even treated his servants better than this.

I can just picture the Father pacing back and forwards, back and forwards waiting for his son, looking out for him. Many of us as parents have done this – waiting up for a child who is home late. Some of us are still waiting for that Lost Son or Daughter to come Home.

In that VULNERABLE place, this wandering, lost Son could be touched by His Father. The same goes for us. In the RAW, HONEST place of US, we all have that place within – GRACE from Our Heavenly Father can RESTORE us.

So, thank you Emma, such a gift you are!  Such an example of what to pray for. A VULNERABLE HEART. For then GRACE comes.

I want to encourage you all to watch Emma’s video on Carrying Her Cross, that we made last year. You will find an amazing testimony, a sharing so vulnerable that tears will flow.

I pray it is an encouragement to all who watch it. Watch it again if you have seen it already.  Watch HERE.

I pray that the GRACE of GOD comes to all our Vulnerable Hearts this LENT and forever after. This honest vulnerability is all God asks of us so that He can send His restoring Grace and we, in this state, are in a place to accept it. The sacrament of reconciliation is a place where this grace lives. Come, I invite everyone of you to accept this reconciling Grace. Who does not need this gift? 

May these jottings from my journal inspire you to believe in and fall in love with Christ- the hope of the world, as stated in Jeremiah 17:7, ‘Blessed is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord!’

Love

Rosemary

Every week groups of ladies meet together to chat about the things I raise in my weekly blog post and to chat about life in general. We call these ‘Heart Connect’ groups. If you would like more information please click HERE.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Do you need grace in your life?

Do you need to be honest with God?

Maybe there are a few areas that need more honesty with God. What are those areas?