There are three powerful ways we can witness God’s grace on this Earth. 1. An unexpected break. 2. A good fluke. 3. Dodging catastrophe.
An Unexpected Break
One day as I was lamenting that our family had WAY more month than money, I pulled out yet another bill from the mailbox. Or so I thought! It was not a bill, it was a CHECK! Apparently we had “overpaid” a prior payment, and this was a “refund”. I don’t believe that for one bit. I highly doubt we could’ve ever paid $900 too much! It was the grace of God, pure and simple. I grinned ear to ear as I paid all sorts of bills later that day, with glee.
The parking lot incident- pennies from Heaven? More like DOLLARS! Years ago, our family was crawling toward payday and really needed groceries. Our three daughters were involved in a traveling dance competition team, and the expenses were killing us. My husband came home from work that afternoon with a fistful of $326 cash. He had checked around at all the establishments and had asked if anyone had lost any cash. No one had. We got the nicest cart full of groceries that very evening!
Was this odd, or was it God? Grace can wear many hats. Found money is one of them. Praise God for grace!
A Good Fluke
I am in the process of working with an excellent Book Coach, Lynne Heinzmann, to try to get an agent for my first Young Adult novel, What Happened at Soaring High Dance Academy? God Happened. I am pursuing a traditional publisher, even though I self-published it in 2021. When I went to email her the finished manuscript, I looked in my Word docs and did not see it. This story is 200 pages. I sat at my desk, head on my forearms and sobbed. Was my dream already dashed before I even began?
I fretted and fretted, lost sleep that night, and vowed to hunt around the next morning for it. I called my patient, wonderful friend and apologized to her that I could only find a very messy, year-earlier draft. Ugh. I was looking at weeks of rewriting! What a miserable slog! I had already done all the work with her before, for months and months. God bless her. More importantly, I would be letting Lynne down, since she wanted to work with me now to take this exciting chance with the book! I felt terrible.
Here I am, on the phone with her, my heart pounding. What will we do? She very calmly says, “Oh, you didn’t have to feel bad at all. We would’ve thought of something. I found it right in my documents, the final, polished book.” Thank Heaven. My stomach is no longer queasy. More grace in action. And, by the way, Lynne is the kind of friend you want to have by your side. Always.
Dodging Catastrophe
I cannot believe I can say that I have been hit by a car. It was Christmas Eve. It was dusk, and the hubby and I were finishing up our chilly walk. The driver was texting, when she almost ran a stop sign and hit me in the ankle. Ouch. I yelled out, apparently loudly enough for her to brake and pay attention to what she was doing. I’ve never seen my husband get so upset with someone. I felt loved. Most of all, I felt grateful for God’s grace, which enabled me to get away with only a few bruises, no broken bones –so I could continue our life-my teaching, my caregiving for my mother, and the raising of our children –If I went down, our whole infrastructure would collapse.
We had to refinance our little home, to pay off other loans which were breaking our backs. That new mortgage became a lot more than the home was worth, in the recession of 2008. We were dying, as we could not sell the home for enough to pay off this new home loan, when we moved out of state. The home was upside down by $50,000. We were totally stuck. I asked God to give me an idea. He did. In the shower! While I was rinsing out my hair, I thought I heard in my head, “Swallow your pride. Ask your mother. You’ll pay her back later.”
Mom and I were sitting at her Retinologist. She had to get those horrible eye shots-Avastin, every month. Courageous lady. Embarrassed, I lamented our house plight. She hardly batted an eyelash. “How much would it take to make that problem go away?” Oh my gosh. Was relief truly at hand? Could this be fixed today? Could we set up payments to her? Yes, yes and yes.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is God’s grace.
Glimmers
A new buzzword is glimmers. They are the opposite of triggers. If we have eyes to see, the world will show us multiple glimmers in any given day. I call these manifestations of God’s grace. I have experienced countless unexpected breaks, good flukes and catastrophes dodged. I will never doubt God at work in all of our lives, constantly.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith. And this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” Ephesians 2:8
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