Secrets and Lies

She felt like God had to make special ‘interventions’ in her life to make right all the wrong she had done and had experienced at the hands of others. “It’s like God has been looking out for me,” she wrote. “I don’t know why God does this. I’m feeling so worthless and so down because once again, I’ve been lied to, and humiliated, and it is always me who must pay the consequences of others’ actions.”

“In fact, sometimes when God does intervene,” she wrote, “I get mad at God because I want to stay in the defeated state and not move on. I want an excuse to wallow in all this muck and hide from my life and from God, but God won’t let me. It’s at those times I feel God’s gentle but persuasive pull and slowly I stand back up with God’s help.”

“My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9, The Message)

She told me: “This morning while I checked my emails, still wearing my PJs at 10 a.m., with un-brushed teeth and tears still leaking from my eyes, God ministered to my soul through the beautiful sunlight that shone on my face. For a moment, I forgot that I was in the frigid north, surrounded by secrets and lies and I imagined that I was on an island beach and this sunny sunshine was warm and everything was sandy and then I forgot what had happened to me and I felt like God had made that little light shine just for me!

“I rejoiced and thanked God for such a small glimpse of the sunny grace.

“Then feeling a little better, I suggested making waffles for my daughter and oh, how I tensed up when I realized that the words were out of my mouth before I had checked to see if we had the ingredients. I let out a sigh of relief when we did have everything we needed and how good those waffles tasted as we stood at the counter scarfing up warm waffles with melted butter and maple syrup in our jammies.

“And again I rejoiced and thanked God for such a taste of sticky grace.

“And while I was typing this letter to you my friend, the front door made music as the keypad was punched and in walked my other daughter from university all excited and with wet hair, talking a blue streak about a date in the dark, of eating at a restaurant in the dark, being seated by a blind waiter and her excitement was palpable, she was effulgent then blushing when I saw the ring on her finger, not from the boy but given by a roommate and it made me forget what happened this week that had left me stuck in the mud of fear and distrust.

“And I rejoiced and thanked God for such a glimpse of youthfulness and how grace is given to young and old, weary and energized, those stuck and those free.

“And all of a sudden I felt free—was free—free from the power of sin and humiliation and free to experience all of God’s grace given so undeservedly to me.”

“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which God loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with God and seated us with God in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come God might show the immeasurable riches of God’s grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4-7)