Grace For Even This...

My heart seems to pound against my chest as I sit in the pew and watch a couple rush out of church. Their beloved son, unexpectedly, is dead. I tell myself to breathe. 

There is grace for even this.

News of another friend's eternal home-going arrives the next morning. 

There is grace for even this. 

At the ballpark, lyrics from the country song "Semper Fi" float across the field and I'm suddenly thrown into a sentimental moment as I'm jarred once again by the realization that my Alex is really and truly gone. I fight back the tears and am thankful I'm just a bit too busy to fully stop and have a breakdown. I remind myself yet again...

There is grace for even this.

It's easy to think you understand your need for sustaining grace but, until you've been through something that causes you to realize it's all you have, I don't think you fully grasp how dependent you are on it. That grace alone upholds you, strengthens you, comforts you when all other comforts seem inadequate. When every other form of support has fallen short, you discover the limitless supply of grace's abundance. You see that there is always enough God for everything. And you breathe in His life. 

I stare at the words engraved on the bracelet on my wrist and repeat the truth I've come to hold onto in recent weeks: strength in weakness. Somehow, as I've had to walk through a very dark valley of late, the knowledge that His power is perfected in my weakest moments - that His grace is forever sufficient - has helped me to be okay with not being okay. To keep on living life when all I sometimes want to do is shut myself off and lick my wounds. To continue bravely loving when loss has created a gaping hole in your heart that you're trying to figure out how to live with going forward. To make the daily choice to be vulnerable when I'm not aways entirely sure that others will hold my pain gently and fully understand. There is a certain strength in weakness that I'm discovering because I'm learning that God gives the courage when I have none. Courage to do things I'd often rather run from instead of face. 

And, through it all, I've kept on telling myself these words...

There is grace for even this.

When I'm at the end of my rope, and I don't think I can handle anything anymore, there is grace for even this.

When the losses keep on piling up, and I feel I've run out of tears to shed and sympathy to give, there is grace for even this.

When I'm hit unexpectedly by the insensitivity of others at this time, there is grace for even this.

When I can't feel the closeness of God in my darkest hours and the pain presses in hard, there is grace for even this.

The scenarios go on. And there is always grace upon grace. There is enough in who God is and what He supplies to override my natural human responses to every trial, allowing me the strength to walk through what I otherwise might seek to avoid or fight unnecessarily. 

The depression? I don't worry about it. The anxiety? I don't fear it. The outbursts of grief, the endless asking of 'why'? I don't run from them. The hours of darkness that, at times, seem endless? I don't try to hide them. Because I know that, in every change or circumstance, He remains the same. Grace never fails to show up. 

Emblazon this truth on my heart, Lord. There is no place where Your grace has not gone before, and I'm covered in the protection of Your divine favor, no matter how dark or painful the journey may be. Whatever place you bring me to, even if it's one of intense sorrow, remind me of the one thing I can count on to see me through - however hard the moment or the season of life: 

There is grace for even this.