Aaahhh . . . Memorial Day. The official start of summer: a three-day weekend, picnics, pools, family, and friends.We spent ours with our family in Tennessee at our son and daughter-in-law's: six adults, two dogs, and a baby. Guess who ruled the weekend?
Don't get me wrong, she's not bossy. She's just, as my daughter likes to say, particular. Cuter than a koala but particular. She likes to eat at certain times. She likes to sleep at certain times, and she really likes her mommy. She's past the infant sleep-anywhere-through-anything stage and into the one long morning nap, one long afternoon nap, and to bed by 7:00 stage. I remember my own kids on that schedule. It's great for getting stuff done around the house but not so great for going anywhere. By the time you get them changed and fed and changed again after each sleep session, there's barely enough time to drive somewhere much less do anything once you get there. So other than a couple of meals out and an hour pool-side sun-bath, we spent the weekend inside their small two-bedroom apartment (yes, that's six adults - or as my twenty-five year old son said "five adults and me," two dogs, and a baby for three days).
While we thoroughly enjoyed our time together, I'm pretty sure each of us would say that it would have been nice to do something - site-see, go to a movie, miniature golf, something. But no one complained. No one grumbled or grunted or was irritated. We were all okay to go at Li'l B's pace because she couldn't go at ours.
It made me think of grace. We didn't have to listen to our littlest member, the weakest among us all (including the dogs). She wasn't really the boss, but we listened to her because we love her. She needed us to extend undeserved favor to her - just as we so often need God to extend His undeserved favor to us. Even if she could have understood what we wanted to do, even if she'd tried to go at our pace, she couldn't have done so, and we knew that.
Grace knows us. It knows our limitations. It knows the pace at which we learn and grow. It never asks us to be what we're not nor does it require of us what we don't have to give. Grace meets us where we are, takes our hand in His, and walks with us, at our pace, and brings us home.
Don't get me wrong, she's not bossy. She's just, as my daughter likes to say, particular. Cuter than a koala but particular. She likes to eat at certain times. She likes to sleep at certain times, and she really likes her mommy. She's past the infant sleep-anywhere-through-anything stage and into the one long morning nap, one long afternoon nap, and to bed by 7:00 stage. I remember my own kids on that schedule. It's great for getting stuff done around the house but not so great for going anywhere. By the time you get them changed and fed and changed again after each sleep session, there's barely enough time to drive somewhere much less do anything once you get there. So other than a couple of meals out and an hour pool-side sun-bath, we spent the weekend inside their small two-bedroom apartment (yes, that's six adults - or as my twenty-five year old son said "five adults and me," two dogs, and a baby for three days).
While we thoroughly enjoyed our time together, I'm pretty sure each of us would say that it would have been nice to do something - site-see, go to a movie, miniature golf, something. But no one complained. No one grumbled or grunted or was irritated. We were all okay to go at Li'l B's pace because she couldn't go at ours.
It made me think of grace. We didn't have to listen to our littlest member, the weakest among us all (including the dogs). She wasn't really the boss, but we listened to her because we love her. She needed us to extend undeserved favor to her - just as we so often need God to extend His undeserved favor to us. Even if she could have understood what we wanted to do, even if she'd tried to go at our pace, she couldn't have done so, and we knew that.
Grace knows us. It knows our limitations. It knows the pace at which we learn and grow. It never asks us to be what we're not nor does it require of us what we don't have to give. Grace meets us where we are, takes our hand in His, and walks with us, at our pace, and brings us home.
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