My “word” for this year is grace. I seek to find everyday graces and have found them more often than naught, in the hard places.
I have found grace through watching my friend and her family mourn the death of their beloved twenty month old grandchild through drowning, all the while honoring his memory and the other side of the family in love and respect.
I have seen the dignity and grace of a fellow blogger who fell and broke her hip five weeks ago. This happened during the awful snow and ice the mid-west was experiencing. As she was leaving the facility where her mother and father live she fell on the ice. She was there ministering to her mother who is in the throes of Alzheimer’s. The facility is an hour away from her own home. This past week her dearly beloved spouse had cardiac bypass surgery. She commented in her blog, “I think we have become the people we use to feel sorry for.”
I have seen items posted on Facebook that have served to encourage me in my Christian walk and it has filled my heart with grace and inspiration.
Yesterday, I observed grace, everyday grace watching the elderly, the middle aged and the youth as they packaged 7,000 pair of underwear and socks for a local school, a ministry that supports the marginalized and the Salvation Army. Yes, it was grace in action filling a need we sometimes don’t consider.
The principal of a local school related how a young boy could not sit still through his reading class. He was moving around and wiggling and could not sit still in his chair. He was sent to the principal’s office. She asked him what the problem was. He quietly said, “my pants don’t fit right.” She looked him over and replied, “they look fine to me.” He lowered his head and said, “I’m not wearing underwear. I don’t have any.”
Doesn’t that beg the question, how many other children does this happen to? The principal called our church and we partnered together with the other two ministries and began to collect the items during the Lenten season. Undie Sunday it was titled. Out of the 7,000 pair/pieces of undies and socks, 50% of the children’s items will go to the school with the other to be divided between the other ministries. The adult items will be divided up between the two ministries with the bulk of it going to the Salvation Army as they serve the homeless population.
Yes… there is grace even in underwear.
I have found grace through watching my friend and her family mourn the death of their beloved twenty month old grandchild through drowning, all the while honoring his memory and the other side of the family in love and respect.
I have seen the dignity and grace of a fellow blogger who fell and broke her hip five weeks ago. This happened during the awful snow and ice the mid-west was experiencing. As she was leaving the facility where her mother and father live she fell on the ice. She was there ministering to her mother who is in the throes of Alzheimer’s. The facility is an hour away from her own home. This past week her dearly beloved spouse had cardiac bypass surgery. She commented in her blog, “I think we have become the people we use to feel sorry for.”
I have seen items posted on Facebook that have served to encourage me in my Christian walk and it has filled my heart with grace and inspiration.
Yesterday, I observed grace, everyday grace watching the elderly, the middle aged and the youth as they packaged 7,000 pair of underwear and socks for a local school, a ministry that supports the marginalized and the Salvation Army. Yes, it was grace in action filling a need we sometimes don’t consider.
The principal of a local school related how a young boy could not sit still through his reading class. He was moving around and wiggling and could not sit still in his chair. He was sent to the principal’s office. She asked him what the problem was. He quietly said, “my pants don’t fit right.” She looked him over and replied, “they look fine to me.” He lowered his head and said, “I’m not wearing underwear. I don’t have any.”
Doesn’t that beg the question, how many other children does this happen to? The principal called our church and we partnered together with the other two ministries and began to collect the items during the Lenten season. Undie Sunday it was titled. Out of the 7,000 pair/pieces of undies and socks, 50% of the children’s items will go to the school with the other to be divided between the other ministries. The adult items will be divided up between the two ministries with the bulk of it going to the Salvation Army as they serve the homeless population.
Yes… there is grace even in underwear.
Wishing
you everyday grace,
Tamara
P.S. James 1:27 Good News Translation
27 What God the Father considers to be pure and genuine religion is this: to take care of orphans and widows in their suffering and to keep oneself from being corrupted by the world.
Noone could have penned the lesson in grace and its hidden corners better than you Tamara dear.
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