My day started at about 4 AM, with the jackhammer in my head. My migraine was back. Sometimes I think it never really leaves.... Despite the fact that my new medication seemed to be working, apparently my migraine had "crashed the gates" and taken up residence in its favorite spot, directly behind my right eyeball. Typical sharp sharp stabbing pain, like a hot knife. I knew falling back to sleep was an impossibility. So, as usual, I wandered downstairs to hang out with the dog and watch "I Love Lucy" re-runs on Nick at Night.
The day never got much better. It was one of those days when I was much more aware of the pain of those around me: I saw a mom shout at her little kids in the grocery store.... not just shout a little, but really mean, vicious hate-filled shouting... I turned on the news and saw a weeping couple, looking defeated.... they had lost everything they owned to the fires in California. They had to start over again and, as the wife said, "We're not kids anymore".
So, to that end, I thought I'd re-visit the concept of grace, and add my thought that even in life's nastiness, where all you can see is the thorny painful thistle, God's grace is like the rose that comes OUT on the same branch as that nasty thorny thistle, despite ALL seeming "evidence" to the contrary.
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God..."
The day never got much better. It was one of those days when I was much more aware of the pain of those around me: I saw a mom shout at her little kids in the grocery store.... not just shout a little, but really mean, vicious hate-filled shouting... I turned on the news and saw a weeping couple, looking defeated.... they had lost everything they owned to the fires in California. They had to start over again and, as the wife said, "We're not kids anymore".
So, to that end, I thought I'd re-visit the concept of grace, and add my thought that even in life's nastiness, where all you can see is the thorny painful thistle, God's grace is like the rose that comes OUT on the same branch as that nasty thorny thistle, despite ALL seeming "evidence" to the contrary.
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God..."
- Ephesians 2:8
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"Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void."
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"Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void."
- Simone Weil
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"Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness.... Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: 'You Are Accepted'."
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"Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness.... Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: 'You Are Accepted'."
- Paul Johannes Tillich
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"All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace."
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"All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace."
- Reinhold Niebuhr
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"The grace of God is, in my mind, shaped like a key, that comes from time to time and unlocks the heavy doors." (This one is my favorite.) :-)
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"The grace of God is, in my mind, shaped like a key, that comes from time to time and unlocks the heavy doors." (This one is my favorite.) :-)
- Donald Swan
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