regraced

If we can be disgraced (and I know I can), yesterday I was regraced. And being God, he regraced me abundantly, with baskets-full left over afterwards. I pray that this will be your experience too.

Just when I think I have experienced all there is to experience of God’s grace he outdoes himself once again and I find myself sitting back and laughing. Laughing at my own arrogance for thinking I knew it all. Laughing at the thought of God smiling to himself as he acts in graciousness towards me, knowing how I will react. Laughing for joy at the blessings themselves.

Yesterday was full of evidence of God’s goodness to me, to us as a family and to us as a church. I can’t give you specific details yet as that may embarrass the people involved, but I can say that I began the day with a sense of apprehension (which was based on my own inadequacies). That dissipated soon after Sally and I prayed about it (we must do that more often) and was replaced by joy as I met newcomers at the church, as God spoke to me about his faithfulness and compassion through the service, as I spent a lovely time visiting one of our members who is convalescing, as I received some fantastic news at home and then as God spoke to me again through the evening service about how we need not fear anything because of who he is, what he has done and therefore who we are. (If you feel the need you can listen to the sermons on our church website, they should be there soon.)

The good old hymn has some great advice: “Count your blessings, name them one by one.” Go on, try it – and then try being grumpy…

Baby Bear goes downstairs and sits in his small chair at the table, he looks into his small bowl. It is empty. “Who’s been eating my porridge?!!”, he squeaks.

Daddy Bear arrives at the big table and sits in his big chair. He looks into his big bowl, and it is also empty. “Who’s been eating my Porridge?!!,” he roars.

Mummy Bear puts her head through the serving hatch from the kitchen and yells, “For Pete’s sake, how many times do we have to go through this?

It was Mummy Bear who got up first, it was Mummy Bear who woke everyone in the house, it was Mummy Bear who made the coffee, it was Mummy Bear who unloaded the dishwasher from last night, and put everything away, it was Mummy Bear who went out in the cold early morning air to fetch the newspaper, it was Mummy Bear who set the table, it was Mummy Bear who put the cat out, cleaned the litter box, and filled the cat’s water and food dish, and, now that you’ve decided to drag your sorry bear-butts downstairs, and grace Mummy Bear’s kitchen with your grumpy presence, listen good, cause I’m only going to say this one more time . . .

“I HAVEN’T MADE THE PORRIDGE YET !!”