Although there were a couple of week’s worth of false alarms preceding her arrival, when she finally did decide to make an appearance, it all happened pretty quickly. Unfortunately, I had the flu so wasn’t able to meet her until Friday when she came home.
As I sat on the couch the other night holding her, amazed by her smallness, her vulnerability, her beauty, I was struck by just how fast life goes by.
It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was holding her mom and her aunt in my arms, rocking them, talking to them, calming their fears, soothing their cries…..and now they’ve both grown into strong, independent, young women with lives of their own…
At some point in our lives, we realize that life is not about what we do for a living, how much money we make, how fancy the house we live in or the car we drive. Our legacy is in the lives we touch and the impact we have on our world.
It’s so easy to lose focus and get caught up in all the other crap of the world. We make decisions based on selfish goals and desires. Decisions that seem perfectly “normal” and are completely acceptable to the world we live in. We even go so far as to rationalize them to the point that we believe that what we’re doing is for the best of those around us.
My granddaughter’s name is Grace and her beauty is undeniable.
The other grace though, the one with the small g is defined as an immunity, forgiveness or reprieve, a favor rendered by one who need not do so. This is the grace that we need to receive and the grace that we need to offer.
It can be bestowed on us by our spouses, neglected, slighted or hurt, our children, who were left to face life’s battles as we made a name for ourselves in the world, our friends who again sometimes receive second tier attention when we’re pursuing our “dreams” or ultimately by God who’s grace we need more than any other.
There’s a song titled BLINK by Revive that I really like and that is so appropriate….
Teach me to number my days
And count every moment before it slips away
Taking all the colors before they fade to gray
I don't want to miss even just a second more of this
It happens in a blink
It happens in a flash
It happens in the time it takes to look back
I try to hold on tight, but there's no stopping time
What is it I've done with my life
It happens in a blink
Life does go by in the blink of an eye and we need to make sure we don’t miss it. We need to take the time to make sure we’re investing in the things that matter, and we need to recognize that we all need grace and that it’s there if we seek it, knowing all the while we don’t deserve it. And, in the same way, we need to be able to offer grace to those in our lives that we know don’t deserve it, but desperately need it.
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