Space For Grace

My sweet Lilly Grace, has no fear! Plain and simple. Nothing scares her and that terrifies her Momma! She races through life with such tremendous speed, it’s a wonder I haven’t started strapping a helmet on her head when she gets up in the morning. She is constantly crashing into furniture, stumbling and tripping on whatever lies in her path, and ultimately ending up in a heap on the floor. Her middle name may be “Grace,” but the child, God bless her, does not have a lick of it! Cody swears she gets this from me, and I have to admit I am as uncoordinated as they come. If you want a good laugh, watch me attempt to follow along with an exercise video. It’s awful!

I was reminded today of a different kind of grace. Not the kind that is elegance of motion, which apparently my daughter and I both lack. I was reminded of another kind of grace… the forgiving mercy of Jesus. There have been so many times in my life that I have been that heap on the floor. Not in the physical way, but emotionally, or even spiritually. I have made such a mess of things that getting back up was absolutely daunting. So often I would rather stay right there huddled up on the ground with my face down, hiding. Then Jesus steps in. He takes those ugly mistakes I have made and turns them into something beautiful. He uses those hollow empty spaces in my heart and fills them with His grace. He confronts the lies inside of me with His truth.

This weekend while playing outside, I took this picture of Lilly. I really didn’t even know I had taken it until I got back inside and looked through the 50+ pictures I had snapped during our short outside playtime. When I saw this picture, I chuckled to myself, remembering her unsuccessful attempt to kick the ball to her Pop. If you look closely, it looks as if she is trying (on purpose) to do the splits. Nope. This was not a planned position. She just somehow ended up like this and never even made contact with the ball. Honestly, I dismissed it as another snapshot that is not worthy of printing, sending to grandparents, or including in her scrapbook. Then today I realized that this picture of my little girl falling down so ungracefully is a perfect reminder that we are all going to fail at some point in this life. Sometimes they are small mistakes we make, and sometimes they are so monumental that we feel their effects years down the road. But Jesus, in all His mercy and grace, transforms every failure, mistake, and shortcoming into something extraordinary.

As a mom, I can’t wait to celebrate each of my children’s successes. But I also look forward to those times that, inevitably, they will fail. Then it will be my chance to tell them of the sweet, loving mercy of Jesus and all that His grace can do.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9