Reflections on Grace

Grace is the strong hand that reaches out to pull us out of the rising waves when in fear we start to sink.

Grace is the eyes that see us even when we feel invisible to the whole world.

Grace stares in the face of infinite loss and points to but one mighty refuge: the Cross.

Grace is the divine hand that pulls us back from the brink. Every time.

Grace causes the last bits of ice on the surface of our souls to chip off and melt away.

Grace sprints to us while we are still a long way off and gets the fattened calf ready for the party of the century--because a beloved child is coming home.

Grace calls the lame, the blind, the rejected, the poor, the lost, and the mourning to feast in the King's banquet hall, and His banner over them is love.

Grace extends a hand to the lost and the rejected and asks them to dance.

Grace turns to the criminal beside Him and offers him paradise at his last breath, bringing the unshakeable hope of heaven even to a place shrinking under the stench of hell.

Grace is the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints. Qualified us, even us.

Grace is the searing poverty of One who, through His sacrifice, makes even the least of these extravagantly rich.

Grace marks the murderer, the outcast, the broken, the drug addict, the prostitute, the rapist, the abuser, the weeping, the child slave, the victim, the bully, the terrorist, the forgotten, the unwanted, and declares over them all the same eternal and beautiful mantra: You. Are. MINE.

Grace utterly demolishes every lie we've ever been told about ourselves and claims that we're worth the life and breath and blood and tears of the One who makes the morning stars sing together.

Grace is rain in the desert, peace in the storm, life in the midst of our lifelessness.

Grace breaks into the camp of the enemy and steals back lost innocence, lost hope, lost dreams, lost souls.

Grace declares that our past cannot define us, our present cannot possibly be the end of our story, and our future is being written by a hand of love.

Grace strips off our dirty, ripped, filthy sin-rags and garments of despair and drapes a spotless robe of righteousness and a garment of praise over us.

Grace gently pries the cheap dime-store trinkets out of our fingers to replace them with a gift of immeasurable worth. To place His ring on our finger.

Grace pursues us and chases us down and can always outrun us, because it is relentless.

Grace is the crimson stain obliterating the record against us, nailed to his cross.

Grace picks up our ruin and gets the mess of our lives on His hands and picks through even the gutter, the garbage dump, the dark alley, the dirt, the prison, the crack house, the nightclub, the brothel, the homeless shelter, the sweatshop, to find us. Just to find us.

Grace runs after us every time we run away. Every time.

Grace feels our tears on His face and our smile on His lips.

Grace breaks down the walls, tears the bars away, and floods the forbidden and forgotten places with light.

Grace is the divine power that pours unchecked healing into the broken life of someone who but touches the hem of His garment.

Grace wraps a towel around His waist and washes the feet of sinners.

Grace whispers, grace shouts, grace shatters all our preconceived notions about ourselves.

Grace is the treasure of the ages in a cracked jar of clay.

Grace defies all the lies we've ever been told about who we are and just starts telling us whose we are--until we finally start to believe it.

Grace pierces even the deepest darkness and rips off the veil.

Grace is the name of Christ, whispered in the darkest valley. Shouted from the highest mountaintop. Sung from the church pew, prayed by a lonely child, cried out by a single mom, pled by the worst of sinners, breathed out from the heart of the faint and weak and weary. Jesus. JESUS. Never-ending grace.