The Pawn Shop

Imagine strolling into a pawn shop. The bell rings as the door opens.  You're struck with the masculine smell of oil and gun grease. Overhead you see things too big to sit on shelves strung from the ceiling: canoe paddles, a bicycle... On the shelves lurk abandoned books, knick-knacks, and depression era glass.  Glancing at the glass counter you see the reflection of wedding rings, the picture of desperation and betrayal.  

Then to your surprise you see a sticker. Peering about you notice lots of big yellow stickers with one word, "Redeemed."  Someone wanted this one back, someone paid back all the money that it was sold for and then some.  Someone thought it was valuable, desirable and precious.  It's no longer for sale.  It may be sitting here, but it's not destined for the pawn shop.  It's redeemed.

The Grace of Spiritual Gifts

At the congregation I attended in Alabama, there was a wonderful and hardworking family.  Ashley, Emily and their mother Martha were almost never seen in an adult Bible class.  While most of us teachers looked forward to our quarter off, these ladies happily taught all ages of the preschool wing each and every quarter.  They developed curriculum; they bought supplies; they taught our children with infinite patience, smiles on their faces, and obvious love in their hearts.  Teaching was their gift, and they were diligent in using it for God's glory and the building up of the church.  

Amazing Grace

Abortion has been much on my mind lately.  Between the sensational Kermit Gosnell trial and Texas Senator Wendy Davis's now infamous filibuster, there has been enough news about the controversial topic to keep it in the forefront of anyone's mind. Perhaps that's why when I watched the movie Amazing Grace, I thought about abortion.

Amazing Grace is a film chronicling William Wilberforce's struggle to abolish the English slave trade in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  I rented the movie because I knew that July was going to be our "grace" month here on the blog (Benedict Cumberbatch's role as William Pitt was only icing on the cake).  As I watched the film, searching for evidence of grace, I was instead struck by the similarities between Wilberforce's battle to end the slave trade and the political battle raging today to end abortion.

The Grace of Adoption

In ESL my class, I often say, "Would you like to hear a story?"  My students may not be children anymore, but they never turn me down.  When I'm lucky sometimes they turn around and tell stories to me.  

One summer day a student began a story with this intriguing sentence, "I am studying medicine because my dad is such a responsible doctor."  I smiled encouragingly at her, waiting for some tale about how he told her stories from work. I guessed wrong.  He brought something quite different home.

The Grace of Forgiveness

Because it was my bright idea to devote a full month to the concept of grace here at Maidservants of Christ, Helene asked me what angle I wanted to take for the month.  If she could have seen me from across the world, she would have witnessed a great "deer in the headlights" look.  I don't know; I just like grace.  It's nice to remember grace amidst our sometimes painful confession filled posts.  Framework?  Um.... I like grace.

Helene was not going to let me get away with weaseling out of a more concrete idea.  "You chose it; you decide how we write about it."  Drat.  So I started a preliminary look at grace as we read about it in the Bible, particularly the New Testament.  I found a lot of verses I memorized as a child about our salvation through grace and how it colors our relationship with God.  That aspect of grace was familiar to me.  

Let Me Point Out

Recently as I was scrolling down my Facebook home page, I found one of those articles that pops up again and again in your feed.  By Daniel Howell, the article was "Four ways to encourage your kids to leave the church."  I read it and snickered in agreement.

Before I was a blogger, I didn't read comments or leave them.  I know that this is a bad lurker habit. I just didn't realize how much that interaction could mean to the writer.  These days I'm a serial scroller.  Down I went.  

The Grace of Watermelon

I am terrible at giving gifts.  A real disaster.  I get the cold sweats every time birthdays or Christmas rolls around. I never know what to get anyone, even the people I love the most.  I often buy presents in bulk! For example on any given year all the kids in our extended family will get the same t-shirt that has the name of whatever SE Asian country we visited on vacation.  Lame.