Moments of Grace in a Bench, an Email, and a Card

What I received, what I can give, what we can all share

Yesterday and today, moments of grace.  Yesterday morning, as Scout and I headed out, I noticed a stunning array of colors in the East as I backed out of the driveway.  It was one of those sunrises where it looked like a wall of pinks and oranges as the below-the-horizon sun reflected up to the clouds on the horizon.  I really wanted to get to the lake to see a wider horizon but it was not to be.  By the time I arrived, most of the variety of colors had faded and there was only a small glimpse of what had been there only a few minutes before.  I was disappointed for sure (do I have an addiction to sunrises?) but as we started out on our walk, we came to something I was not expecting at all.

This.

We hadn’t gotten much rain in the last few days so I was not at all expecting to see any flooding at the lake but there it was.  It was literally only about an inch or less of water (you can see the edge of the path just showing up under the water) on the path but there it was.  Still water reflecting the morning sky like a mirror.  It was a take-my-breath away moment.  I was not expecting that at all and it was such a moment of grace.  Had I arrived 15 minutes earlier, it still would have been there but maybe it was in my slight annoyance that this moment had a greater meaning.

That’s not a “when bad things happen, just wait for the blessing around the corner” type of thing but instead knowing how low-level cranky I was feeling yesterday and then seeing this moment.  Grace is the word that just keeps coming up for me.

And then two other moments of grace since that point - both shared as thank you’s to these dear people.  One was that I had sent an email to a group in the congregation I serve asking for prayers for an upcoming sermon and one person replied by saying “Nothing makes me feel more worthwhile than to pray for discernment for you.”  Wow.  What a gift to receive that and to know that this person was going to pray deeply and reflect deeply upon what I had asked about.  What a gift of grace.

And then today as we started our noon small group, one of the participants handed me this card.

I was getting my iPad hooked up to the TV to show a video and didn’t have a chance to really take in what a gift that was.  But I connected with her afterwards to say how I felt so cared for to receive that and she simply said, “I did pray that for you.”  I’m literally feeling a warmth in my heart as I think about this gift from her.

So I am simply celebrating gifts of grace - one from “the bench” and an unexpected moment and then two from people sharing from their heart.  Makes me think about what kind of grace I have offered to others today and maybe also what gift of grace you can give to someone.   

Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed

PS - I was playing around in my photo program with the bench photo and noticed how different a similar image could look with just a few changes... There might be another post in this at a future time...

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