Here and Now

A while ago I got a tattoo on my wrist that simply says GRACE. I wanted it to remind me of God’s grace for me and to help me remember to give grace to others. Sometimes that tattoo on my arm has been my own personal ‘Jonah type situation’. I could easily ‘cover it up’, or so I thought, when I didn’t ‘feel like it’, just like Jonah ran, or so he thought, when he didn’t feel like it. I am asked daily to live like Jesus, extend grace (which I am so freely given – God is a god who extends mercy when we don’t deserve it, everything that is given to us, even the submission to Him is given by grace and mercy), show His love through my life. Well, let me tell you, sometimes, okay honestly, most of the time, I JUST DON’T WANNA!!!!! I have had something inside of me stirring for more, more Jesus, more ways to show Him in my life, more than what the church we were attending was providing on so many levels. I wanted to get out….. (I ran).

Jonah spent three days in the belly of a fish. That fish was Jonah’s ‘salvation’. Bear with me here. If he

didn’t have that time in the belly of the fish, time to spend isolated with God, I think he would have kept running or ‘covering up’(or trying to at least). When we left our church, the church we had been at for so many huge milestones in our lives, I felt lost. I was not content with the church but I felt out of place with the point in our lives we were at. I prayed, a lot more than I had been praying in the past years. I leaned on God, way more than I had in the past years. I dug in to His word, clung to his promises. 

This was my fish belly.

I was starting to feel a lot of discontentment with what was going on. I felt like there was more that I

should be doing (always thinking it had to be something BIG). I was afraid I was going to miss the point, the point of all of this. What God has opened my eyes too are that there is something more, He has plans for me, but they are His plans, I cannot control them. I have so much to work on, right here in

my adorable little home that my hubs and I have together. I have three beautiful children that I am

homeschooling and need to practice GRACE with on a minute by minute basis. I need to show them

God. I have myself to deal with, my completely insecure self. I am slowly learning the more I embrace

that God loves me, the me I am, not the me I think others want me to be, the more grace can flow

out of me. I need to show myself God more. I have an amazing husband, who needs me to hold him

accountable and show grace daily as well. I need to show him God more. I have neighbors who will

hopefully see the love of Jesus by us just simply reaching out by helping out (totally out of my safe little

world I have put myself in). I have come to realize that Jesus is the SAFEST place to be, but he doesn’t

want us to be ‘SAFE’ in the terms I have put it in to. He wants us to move out of comfort, he wants us to stretch, to grow, to go, FEED HIS SHEEP! He will hold our hands and give us the words, we simply need to let the grace flow through!

-JENI