“Let not your hearts be troubled.”
We walked beside the ocean and cried tears for our story. We cried tears of gratitude and sadness. How in all the wonder over our story, we never thought to wonder this would be the good story. Jason struggles to figure when okay will reach him. Not good or bad- simply okay. The moment he will again function on a level of okay. I can tell that is where his wonder finds him often. I have no simple answers. I know there will be grace. Abundant abiding grace. Sustaining grace even.
How are any of us okay, what is the common grace we all enjoy that keeps us moving? Moving in intention not simply getting through. When will real breathing happen again, not the labored reminding of self to press ahead on in life? When will the new normal come and what will it look like? Profound questions I have no answers for... Except the surety that there will be grace. I don't know what that grace will look like, but it will be evident.
Like the time Jason was sure he wouldn't be able to stand at the pulpit with me absent in the crowd- me home sick. But the grace came. Beautiful grace that freed him to tell the greatest story ever told with boldness and clarity. Grace unexpected, but grace evident that showed Jason in subtle ways, he would be kept. Specifically kept on this journey.
What grace do you enjoy today that gives you the strength to get through, perhaps even thrive in the midst of your hard? How are you learning to press into Jesus when the hard edges of life come creeping in to your reality? How do you cling to and remember truth when the answers you desire don't come? How can you know you are not forgotten when the story isn't simple or easy? That's all of us isn't it?
