what in the world, in all this world, is grace?

(Italics = AV’s words)

First refreshing my thinking by listing the words that resonate in my heart from this chapter, 5.

“the gigantic secret of the Christian,” joy hiding in the gratitude…

Fully live!Live fully!

Joy is always worth the wait, and fully living is worth the believing

Dare to celebrate innumerable endless gifts!

Daily discipline is the door to full freedom (argh!  That explains a lot.)

Evil is that –a hole in the goodness of god.  And the last paragraph on p. 88 provides me much to ponder, but I love the last sentence. “Above  the clouds, light never stops shining.” 

Perspective – how we see.   TRUTH for sure!

Can you believe that I tenderly, tirelessly work all for the best good of the whole world – because My flame of love for ou can never, ever be quenched?

Without God’s Word as a lens, the world warps.  (indeed it does, and quickly!)

It is suffering that has the realest possibility to bear down and deliver grace.  And grace that chooses to bear the cross of suffering overcomes that suffering. I need to breathe…So God transfigures all the world?

--mourning and dancing are but movements in His unfinished symphony of beauty.

So,  the first week of this school  year is over.  My bone-tired body is proof of survival and reminder to be thankful.  Without the Eucahristeo “lens,” the week is easily world-warped into a blur of madness.  I think eucharisteo…and the lens of His Word…and there was beauty and grace and a reason to fall gently and joyfully into a discipline that the school year provides.  My challenge – not letting the school year take over my spiritual disciplines or my entire life.  Hold on to the joy and to the discipline…realize that the time spent with my loving Father/God will provide the strength I lacked this week…when my Bible was not opened and my thoughts were filled with ohmygoodness how will I ever do this?  With God’s lens…I know this is possible and this is my purpose.  I sat in church this morning and was incredibly thankful for  the solace of my church family and the beauty of His grace I left filled with.  

So, grace, I am learning and relearning, requires my acceptance.  Acceptance requires acknowledgement...and  while grace is ALWAYS there for us, for me, it might be through discipline  that I am most able to accept it and live in it...