Grace and a Cold

I am reading a book that was indirectly recommended to me by my teenage daughter.  A while back she and her posse of friends passed around a book (longed for it, craved it) called Graceful, by Emily P Freeman.  It was geared for teenage girls, but was written after her book for women called Grace for the Good Girl.  In a nutshell it is about giving up trying to be "good" and be who God made you to be.

Google's first definition of grace that pops up is this (1) simple elegance or refinement of movement (synonyms being elegance and poise).  (2) (in Christian belief) the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings.

Don't we all need grace?  I desire an elegance about me as I go about my day, not a flubbing up of conversations which need me to seek forgiveness afterwards, a confidence in my decision making and not a perpetual worry of some sort that my brain dreams up.  I need to be looked upon as only God can look upon me - with free and unmerited favor.  That there is nothing I can or cannot do that is going to change how God sees me or feels about me.

And so that brings me to today (or rather the last several days).  The end of last week was spent getting the house back in order after the holiday chaos bliss and fun, which included fun baking, making, wrapping, traveling, football, freezing, swimming and friends.  The house all in order to start school this week.

It doesn't take much for all of that order to go down the drain.  A simple upper respiratory funk.  That's all.  Not the flu, or anything.  But enough that the house is back in dissarray - school books out for my unfinished planning, dirty dishes continuing to get stack and rotated in and out of the dishwasher, dirty laundry sorted on the couch, clean laundry ice cold from spending a few days in the dryer (thankfully dry), blankets strewn across the living room floor because of the polar vortex we are experiencing, going back on my pledge this week that screen time (ie movies/tv/computer/ipad/ipod/etc) will be dialed back to almost nill,  and mom (that would be me) laying around not caring one whit about any of it.  Ha.

That's what a simple cold will do for you.  But the fact that I can lay almost completely guilt free about any of it is what Grace can do for you.

My family is extending the extra hands and a heaping dose of free and unmerited favor Grace to me.

Then I try to remember and feel and experience the Grace God extends to me and my life.  All I have to do is crawl up in His lap and sit.  He's got this thing covered for me. After all, He made me.  Exactly as I am. And for that, I am thankful.

(And exactly what I need to remember to extend to one of my offspring as I go unstop the toilet, which said child seems to clog up most frequently. And yes, this just happened as I was typing this post.  God has a grand sense of humor.)