Being Ordinary

Hi...my name is Grace and I am just an ordinary, simple girl.   I used to have to big dreams of doing big things to change this world for God.... but here I am, many years later... tired, broken and just plain ordinary.   

I spend my life documenting extraordinary moments in other peoples lives....weddings, births, engagements, family portraits... moments that I have to honestly admit that I have not had and most likely will never have in life.  

My life has never about me or any moments in my life.   No big jobs, no big degrees, no big adventures...just an ordinary -most tlmes below ordinary- life.   How can God possibly use simple me and my ordinary life??

I guess the same way he used Joseph, and Paul, and most of the others in the Bible who didn't come with grandeur.... they all started with simple ordinary lives... and some of them never made it to any palaces or comfortable homes... Jesus included.  

So maybe the secret of life isn't in living extraordinary lives... maybe the secret is in the little, ordinary lives like mine... maybe God can still use my broken, ordinary life... to show others...

            that God loves ordinary....

                   God uses ordinary.......

    

        to show the world that God is.....

   

                     totally extraordinary.

Broken Pieces

Today has been a tough day for me.  I deal with depression.... and it's been a month since I lost my beloved cat, and today I'm feeling lost.   So what do we do as christians when we are feeling lost??  We're not supposed to ever feel lost, right???   These are the tough things that they just don't want to talk about at church.  Loss and depression are just topics that everyone likes to stay away from.  It's hard to stay away from them from you're living them.  

I made a commitment many years ago to follow Christ.  Because I know it pays to follow Christ.  The problem here on earth is that we are plagued with these things called "feelings"... they can be good..and they can be bad...but they can also be misleading.... letting our feelings guide us often takes us places we really didn't want to go..... Satan often uses feelings to send us on a path that leads away from God....

Commitment means that I follow Christ....no matter what.  Period.  Doesn't matter how I feel, how the weather is, how my life is... I choose to follow him even when it doesn't feel good...even when I'm not feeling loved...even when I'm feeling alone.... 

As long as we are on this earth we will have "feelings".... someday, in heaven, we will see things so much more clearly..... there won't be a need for feelings of sadness or depression.... it will be joy and worshipping... I will eagerly await that day...but for now I am just walking in faith today that God is in control... that tomorrow is a new day... 

 

  and that he is always faithful.... and his Word.... is always true....

          No matter how I feel.

Grace Changes Everything

This year I have been working on the concept of Grace .... accepting God's grace in my own life, even though I am not worthy... and most importantly, showing grace to those arround me.  It's easy to recieve grace - not so easy to be aware to give it.

We live in a world where we are taught to make jugdements from the time we are born - good/bad, hot/cold, nice/mean, pretty/ugly...we grow up atomatically making judgements we sometimes are not even aware of... Jesus NEVER judged.... he met the women at the well... he let her know that he knew of her current circumstances and background, but he didn't codemn her..he offered her the living water that would change her life.. 

Often, I am so busy judging that I don't spend much time offering my Jesus and his living water to people... I am working on skipping the judging part and moving along to the sharing part... Jesus spent very little time on people's current cirumstances...he knew that once they chose to follow him that they would no longer be the same...they would be changed by grace.

I want to change the world with grace.   Why??  Because grace changes everything.  There is power in grace... and I want to share that with the world around me... jugde less - share grace more...

Are you with me?   Let's judge less (and yes, even church is a judgemental zone) and share grace more....   

God alone is worthy to judge....it's not really in our job description to do that..so let him take care of that...just see people for who God created them to be.. and share his grace with them...

        and take a step back...

                 and watch and see.....

                        what our God can do....

Because Grace changes everything.