grace.
It's what I tell people I've learned the most about from this past year.
grace.
It's what I so desperately needed, yet so strongly despised.
grace.
It's how God covered me and what He lavishly poured out on me.
Despite myself, this last year, grace reigned.
praise him.
It's a really ugly thing when you come to the end of yourself. You discover all these things about your-wonderful-self that you didn't know were there (or at least you were fooled into thinking they weren't). I've always been a really determined and goal oriented person. Maybe it's the Asian in me or just my addiction to that feeling of accomplishment. It makes me feel valued. It makes me feel important. It makes me feel alive. Trouble is, when you move overseas and life isn't as efficient, smooth or peachy as you'd like it to be, you unknowingly start tohold on, grab on, grasp tightly to those idols in your life. Unfortunately for me, this looked like doing whatever I could to control my own circumstances. It put a lot more pressure on "my own abilities" and left very little room for God or other people. But the more I tried to control, the more I lost. And the more I lost, the more angry I became. And the more angry I became, the more judgmental I was. And the more judgmental I was, the more depressed I felt. And the more depressed I felt, the more hopelessness consumed me.
And at the end of my hopelessness, I discovered that really ugly something about myself.
I hated grace.
That's probably the last thing I thought God would reveal. After all, Christians are supposed to loooooove grace. Didn't I? I was ready to work on my pride, self-reliance, impatience, anger issues... but grace? Really? The truth is though, a lot of those things are wrapped up in my lack of grace. If you strip away the pride, the arrogance, the anger... the sin left is a graceless heart. And the more things that God stirred up in my life, the more I realized my hatred towards it. As someone who loved to "work hard for what she got" (And yes, I realize there are a lot of problems in that statement to begin with...), I was always discretely looking down on people who basked in grace. It seemed like a cop-out. An excuse.
To me, grace seemed cheap.
And so, as we crawled and stumbled through this past year, God allowed a lot of heartache in our lives to teach us new depths of grace. The hardest part was that the greatest storm was in our marriage. Through an array of different circumstances, Steven and I found ourselves divided and at war with one another for way longer than I'd like to admit. We cut each other with harsh words, left issues unresolved and redeveloped bad habits that we had worked hard to conquer. There were nights where I questioned if God would ever redeem any of what we had lost. It was hard. So very, very hard. Even now, my chest begins to ache and tears well up just thinking about it. Where was God in all of this...?
To know grace is to know the depths of your sin. And as Steven and I continually failed one another, we were both in this new place of needing s o. m u c h. g r a c e. All the time. Every day, as the storm raged on, we felt the deep pain from our sin that only further revealed our utter need for grace. It was here that I believe God began His redemptive work. We had reached a level of vulnerability with one another and with God that we had never been before. We were failing... in every sense of the word. Failing to love each other. Failing to give up control. Failing to trust God. Failing William. And for the first time in a very long time, we felt the depths of our sin and our desperate need of a Savior.
So we did the only thing we hadn't yet tried. We asked for grace. Grace to continue on. Grace to forgive. A grace that could save us from ourselves. And as we slowly embraced this new place of humility (which did not come easy to either of us), we were met with a grace that didn't feel like a cop-out or an excuse at all. This grace wasn't cheap. It was rich, deep and full.
As a way to move beyond this past year and rebuild and reestablish ourselves again, we made this "ebenezer" for our home. It's our way of being reminded of what God has done in our lives and our need to cling to His grace each and every day. Before we hung it, Steven and I asked one another for forgiveness for the hurtful things said and done. We spoke grace over one another and promised to extend it through the hard times yet to come. And we thanked God for it. Praising Him for sending the storm, and in the midst, pouring out grace like rain.
It's what I tell people I've learned the most about from this past year.
grace.
It's what I so desperately needed, yet so strongly despised.
grace.
It's how God covered me and what He lavishly poured out on me.
Despite myself, this last year, grace reigned.
praise him.
It's a really ugly thing when you come to the end of yourself. You discover all these things about your-wonderful-self that you didn't know were there (or at least you were fooled into thinking they weren't). I've always been a really determined and goal oriented person. Maybe it's the Asian in me or just my addiction to that feeling of accomplishment. It makes me feel valued. It makes me feel important. It makes me feel alive. Trouble is, when you move overseas and life isn't as efficient, smooth or peachy as you'd like it to be, you unknowingly start to
And at the end of my hopelessness, I discovered that really ugly something about myself.
I hated grace.
That's probably the last thing I thought God would reveal. After all, Christians are supposed to loooooove grace. Didn't I? I was ready to work on my pride, self-reliance, impatience, anger issues... but grace? Really? The truth is though, a lot of those things are wrapped up in my lack of grace. If you strip away the pride, the arrogance, the anger... the sin left is a graceless heart. And the more things that God stirred up in my life, the more I realized my hatred towards it. As someone who loved to "work hard for what she got" (And yes, I realize there are a lot of problems in that statement to begin with...), I was always discretely looking down on people who basked in grace. It seemed like a cop-out. An excuse.
To me, grace seemed cheap.
And so, as we crawled and stumbled through this past year, God allowed a lot of heartache in our lives to teach us new depths of grace. The hardest part was that the greatest storm was in our marriage. Through an array of different circumstances, Steven and I found ourselves divided and at war with one another for way longer than I'd like to admit. We cut each other with harsh words, left issues unresolved and redeveloped bad habits that we had worked hard to conquer. There were nights where I questioned if God would ever redeem any of what we had lost. It was hard. So very, very hard. Even now, my chest begins to ache and tears well up just thinking about it. Where was God in all of this...?
To know grace is to know the depths of your sin. And as Steven and I continually failed one another, we were both in this new place of needing s o. m u c h. g r a c e. All the time. Every day, as the storm raged on, we felt the deep pain from our sin that only further revealed our utter need for grace. It was here that I believe God began His redemptive work. We had reached a level of vulnerability with one another and with God that we had never been before. We were failing... in every sense of the word. Failing to love each other. Failing to give up control. Failing to trust God. Failing William. And for the first time in a very long time, we felt the depths of our sin and our desperate need of a Savior.
So we did the only thing we hadn't yet tried. We asked for grace. Grace to continue on. Grace to forgive. A grace that could save us from ourselves. And as we slowly embraced this new place of humility (which did not come easy to either of us), we were met with a grace that didn't feel like a cop-out or an excuse at all. This grace wasn't cheap. It was rich, deep and full.
As a way to move beyond this past year and rebuild and reestablish ourselves again, we made this "ebenezer" for our home. It's our way of being reminded of what God has done in our lives and our need to cling to His grace each and every day. Before we hung it, Steven and I asked one another for forgiveness for the hurtful things said and done. We spoke grace over one another and promised to extend it through the hard times yet to come. And we thanked God for it. Praising Him for sending the storm, and in the midst, pouring out grace like rain.
