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Child Of Grace

I'm a child of grace. I'm exceedingly grateful that the challenges, trials and self designated disasters that have been allowed in my life have not been greater...

The total number of opportunities for what I would be tempted to consider greater harm in my life - the absolute terror of things that I don't even know that I've been protected from, are something I can only wonder about. I only know that the horror of what could have happened hasn't. I look across the days of my life and consider that I could have been encumbered with far greater physical suffering, heart rending horror and devastating loss - the potential totality of which I can't even know. Yet I here I am still, gratefully broken by the overwhelming mercy of God's grace. What I have suffered is nothing compared to what I might be worthy of.

I stand before the Lord humbled under the magnitude of His power and greatness. I'm a tender blade of grass standing before the raw and devastating power of a horrifying hurricane - weak and helpless against the whim of what He might allow. I only know something of the potential that I might have counted disaster and yet here I stand, grateful for the abundance of His mercy and grace just to leave me still standing.

It's not that I am worthy of His grace and compassion more than any other. My own heart knows something of the history of my failings and infidelity to Him. And it can only wonder about the count of those things that I'm not even aware of. No, I'm completely able to be justly convicted and not worthy of His mercy by the account of my own history, yet He allows me complete forgiveness and His protection from still greater harm. Whatever has befallen me thus far, is nothing by comparison against the horror of what He could have allowed and He defends me still against the hand of my ever prowling enemy who stands ready to raise it against me to strike me further.

Who am I God in the vastness of this universe that you created? I'm so tiny and insignificant - a near indistinguishable speck in its expansive mass. How is it that you favor me so highly? Whatever has befallen me in this life, I stand grateful for the seemingly endless count of things that haven't... and for the undeserved, countless blessings you've given me in their place. 

Lord I'm yours, created by your will. You alone truly hold the power of life and death. You alone are the judge of what is truly right and just to allow against mankind. My life is yours - it belongs to you along with all that you've created. You have given it and determine what's just to do with it. If you should take it, I have no just right to complain. Because you're completely good and righteous, I know in my heart that if you allow or bring against my life some calamity, it will be to my good, however it may appear to my limited eyes. You bless me continually with life and abundance well beyond what I recognize in my weak and limited state and you gracefully count me worthy of your love though my heart might convict me otherwise. Your provision to redeem me was just and made in spite of the failings in my history - which you made irrelevant and banished from my account purely by the magnitude of your own action of grace. 

From the breath in my lungs this very moment, to the grace of a moment left to praise you, I will remain continually and eternally grateful. In light of what you've made possible and allowed through Christ, I'm your child alone- conceived and born of your grace.

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