GRACE

Does God ever give you a theme?

A word or phrase that He wants you to think about and meditate on?

It starts showing up everywhere--in your daily devotions, on the radio, in Scripture, in conversations, emblazed on a card you receive in the mail from a friend who says, "I just thought you needed this." It may even come up in your life's trials and challenges.

You know God is trying to get your attention. He is trying to teach you something. It's important so you better be listening and paying attention. Chances are, if you fight it, dismiss it or you don't "get it" the first time and try to move on, He'll just bring it up again down the road.

Well, my theme right now is GRACE. I'm tuned in. I really want to "get it."

I only started cluing in about a month ago, when I began a discipleship relationship with my dear friend and sister in Christ, Amy. She started out having me read about my identity in Christ and about salvation and righteousness. Of course the emphasis of many of the related scriptures are about GRACE. At first, I thought, "Gosh, we're spending a lot of time on this." But I trusted her to lead me. We talked more and more about GRACE. Then I started realizing that, yes, I understand grace and I "get" the concept of how grace plays into my salvation and my walk with the Lord...but it was a head knowledge, not a heart knowledge. I hadn't yet fully embraced grace. I wasn't living in it.

It started sinking in more and more, the more I read and studied. "God wants me to think about grace. It's my theme." It has probably come up many times during my life but since I never "got it," He was bringing it up again.

Here's how God works. Not even a month before, I needed to choose a book for our mom's group to study. I looked at my book case and saw one I'd partially completed over ten years ago by Cynthia Heald. "Hm, yeah, it was pretty good," I thought, but I knew she'd authored several more in the same series so I looked her up on Amazon to choose one. Eventually, I settled on the first one I'd picked up, "Becoming a Woman of Grace." A couple weeks into discipleship, when I was working through the first chapter of the book, I cracked up when I realzed the connecttion. I called to tell Amy. She wasn't surprised. I hadn't had a clue when I chose that book, of how God was strategically weaving the GRACE theme into my life.

Then just last week, I went to the Women of Faith web site to check the dates for the upcoming conference here in the Phoenix area. Our church's women's ministry is going in lieu of our annual retreat. The theme this year? "Infinite Grace." I e-mailed Amy to have her take a look and she was equally ecstatic. But not surprised. I believe God will have a lot to tell me during that conference. It's still four months away so I know the grace theme will continue at least that long!

My husband knows about my grace theme. I was telling him about the conference and how excited Amy and I are. He was impressed (but not surprised). I said, "Isn't it cool how the grace theme keeps coming up??" And he said, "Oh, yeah. And even your blog address is 'Finding Myself in Graceville.'" EUREKA!!! I hadn't even thought of that, because while that is my original blog's address, the name has changed.

I named that blog over ten months ago. That's when this whole grace theme must have started. Man, I'm slow. My mentor says that I just wasn't ready until now. Thankfully, God says we can redeem the time. But when I decided on that name...Finding Myself in Graceville...I was definitely thinking about how I'm on this journey of trying to figure out how grace fits into my life.

I want to live in a place of grace. I want to find myself, yes, but I don't want to de-fine myself by how the world sees me or by who I think I should be, but by how God sees me. Who does HE say I am? Who did HE create me to be? How does HE want me to live?

So ten months ago, it started. Then I innocently chose a book for a Bible study. Then I hit a crisis point and said, "HELP! I need to get my spiritual life back on track!" Amy answered the call.

She knew what I needed.

God knows.

I need to embrace grace.

Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."

He is workin' baby. Stay tuned.