part of grace

Several days ago my summer ended. And last night the fall 2013 semester started at the place where I have lived for what seems like so long. I wasn't there and this thought gives me mixed emotions.

Chapters ending in my life and new ones starting.

I had a lot of expectations for this summer. Which is always very dangerous because expectations don't always pan out and sometimes bring you to a rather disappointing place.

Did I expect for death to happen four times over? Perhaps yes, after all I worked in health care at the local retirement center, but still when I saw the family roaming about the halls for hours as they waited for death I inwardly cringed.

Never does one expect to check facebook one Monday morning and find that a national tragedy has struck so close to your heart. Never do you expect that the gospel will be preached so clearly to so many through a friend's death. Sometimes though your trying to understand the reality of pain and the watching of others in pain. I lose words. Not knowing what to say and how to say it, so I pray for grace and hope somehow to be the comfort and not the irritant.

Death was one of the themes from this summer, but death wasn't the only trait of this summer. Learning things in each in every hour. Realizing my depravity and my need of a Savior.

I will thank God for this I scribbled in my journal as I sat on the hardwood of the hallway. Little things happen and they pile everywhere till its seems the rooms in the "house of my life" are disastrous mess.

I didn't quite accomplish what I intended to this summer and this is discouraging to me.

The grace of God does not discourage me. I failed to meet my own expectations, but did I fail God's? Honestly yes I did because I wasn't always faithful in everything I was given this summer.

Summer is over. The mistakes made cannot be undone.

Do I look back with despair or do I thank God for grace and move forward?

Life is dozens and dozens of tiny steps of learning God's grace. Sometimes its slipping backwards, so you can be carried by God alone and not your own actions.

Its all part of grace and I need nothing else.