A picture of grace

Grace.
   Grace is one of my favorite topics to talk about, but one of the least of my favorite to experience. Because when I have to ask for grace to be bestowed upon me, it means I've done something wrong. Whether on purpose or by accident, everyone needs grace. And we all need to give it as much as we need to have it given.
   Can you think of a time when you needed grace?
Perhaps it was a serious moment; or perhaps it was something silly in the end.
   for me, I had to ask for grace many times over this weekend. It was a weekend of wifely woes for me. If I could erase the weekend and start over, I most certainly would. But that's not how life works and that is where the beauty of grace enters the picture.
  While hindsight, the "wifely woes" were not anything life or marital threatening, they sure felt pretty bad in the moment.
   Saturday started with my breaking the brand new carpet cleaner after we'd only had it for 30 minutes. Later in the day, I ruined (ok, maybe it was salvageable, but from my perspective it felt ruined) the potato soup for dinner. And into Sunday, I dented up the side of our "new" car by accident. It was a not a wife of the year kind of weekend by any means!
   None of those above things were life threatening. Nor were any of them things which couldn't be fixed.
 Michael generously went out and bought two of the parts to the cleaner which I had broken (just in case I do this again...which is possible. )  He rescued the soup (he truly is the cook in the house; I was honestly trying to salvage my morning blunder by helping with something he usually does....but I didn't get it all right)  and the car.....well...time will tell what we will do about that. For now, it's an ugly dent which sticks out hugely to me but isn't likely to be seen unless being looked for by another person. Perhaps when winter passes we will have it looked at if it should be fixed.
   But he had to show me grace repeatedly this weekend. While none of my  mistakes were on purpose, they still required forgiveness for something I'd messed up and he had to rescue.And probably even more so, I need to extend myself grace. Sometimes giving ourselves grace is harder than giving another person grace. We beat ourselves up over every little mistake, which is unnecessary.
    The weekend reminded me of the beauty of grace. I felt humbled more than once. God extends us the same grace, only on every scaled level. He literally allowed insults hurled at him, his body to be whipped and beaten and put onto a cross until death came upon Him. He did that for me. He did that for you. He did that because He loves us. And every day He extends His grace to me every time I mess something up. He stays by my side when I "dent up" my life with something messy. He welcomes me with open arms to say "It's ok. Together we will fix it."
  There are times the enemy will attack and I will feel unforgivable. There are times the lies will plague my heart to tell me I'll never be good enough or I'm a failure (ahem, this weekend on more than one occasion I found myself saying that...) But God is there to cover every one of those words with his grace.
  The enemy tells me I'm a failure. Christ says: You're my child. You've already won.
      Enemy tells me I'll never be good enough. Christ says: I'm good enough for you. Let me guide you.
     The enemy says to give up. Christ says: You got this. Keep going.
  This weekend, my husband was a picture of grace, for which I am thankful. And as I work on letting myself get over these blunders, perhaps we will even one day laugh about them.(Perhaps.) Until then, I soak in the picture of grace and hope that I can display it to others around me as it is displayed to me.