A Place Called Grace.

At work, I’ve started leading a creative writing group every other week with some of our clients. Many of them come in saying that they are not writers and will not be able to do this. Over and over I tell them about how they will surprise themselves. Everyone is a writer.

Something similar happened this week. A client came in talking about how she could not do this. I promised her the assignment wouldn’t be difficult, and that the fun thing about writing is there isn’t a right or wrong answer. Your story gets to be what you want!

I decided to start off with a light and fun writing prompt: Would you rather be able to fly or be invisible? Then, write a story about you using your superpower.

I expected the stories to be fun and lighthearted, and most of them were. But one client’s story, the very client who told me she could not write, took my breath away.

She began her story with her flying to different places but quickly it turned serious and she said, “If I could fly I would fly to a place called Grace and God would meet me there.”

The story continued and she met God along the way, but I don’t know if I heard much else after her line about flying to a place called Grace. What I would give to easily fly and land there. Where is this place called Grace? Do we need wings to get there? Can God shower me in grace right now, right here?

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I could picture it, her flying with pearly white wings to this beautiful, simple destination where God met her and clothed her in love and splendor.

Why do I keep waiting to fly there? Grace isn’t a gated community or tucked away in an unreached place, it’s right here. I hold out my hand and hope God will intertwine His hand with mine and take me there.

I’ve felt more humbled and knocked down lately than I’ve felt in a long time. In a lot of ways it’s been really freeing, I’ve had to rely on God like I haven’t in years. Disappointment is broken glass all around me, and my feet and hands are bruised and cut, but I wouldn’t change a moment of the past few months. They have been ugly, but they have left me no choice but to join God in Grace. I can’t survive without His Grace, and I can’t fully experience a life worth living without the good, bad, and ugly. This hard time will be a holy time, that I’m sure of.

In this place called Grace, God is there. He’s not dwelling in the past; He’s fully alive in the present.

I’m opening my hands today asking God to let me feel myself join Him in this place called Grace because I can’t imagine a place where I can be more alive or free.

xo,

msv