From Grace to Now

I was utterly blessed to grow up in a church where I received theologically sound teaching as well as nurturing discipleship. I can look to a long list of names of women who took time out of their busy lives to pour into me--to encourage me to love and follow God more and more. Men and women who taught me what it means to have a relationship with God--that being a Christian means so much more than rote religious practice, that the Creator of the universe loves me so much that He would sacrifice His only Son so that I would be able to call Him friend.

Grace Bible Church has always felt like my first church family, a foundation that the Lord used to make me into the person I am today. Going home means going to Grace. Surrounded by hundreds of faces I don't recognize, the look of a changed church body, oh how I love them still. These people who are to each other what so many families were to me. I love the Christmas Eve service because I get to see all my friends with their parents and siblings, so many people who despite the disputes of a dramatic adolescence love each other so deeply. We are a college town, but underneath all the transient students lays the solid rock of families who love God and desire to see their children follow Him.

It only made sense that when I received an email from the mother of one of my good friends this morning, my heart broke a little. Laura and I floated in and out of closeness through Jr. High and High School, but when we both left College Station to go elsewhere to school, we found a bond that transcended so many of our differences from the years before. I saw how beautiful Laura had become in light of how God had made her--that in a new place, with friends who saw into her, Laura blossomed. Coming home after that meant picking right up from where we left off, looking into the eyes of a sister that had shared so much with me growing up...who shared so much more with me, now miles apart, as we dealt with many of the same trials and joys of spreading our wings. This Christmas I will see Laura for the first time in several years. I expect to smile and embrace and enjoy family.

Mrs. Breedlove's email was addressed to Laura, me and our friend Mitzi, my long ago triad:

"I am in charge of finding Advent readers and candle lighters for the holidays and wanted to know if the three of you would like to do it together on Sunday the 21st? Traditionally I look for a mix of people...couples, young families, children, singles, etc. I just saw in the three of you beautiful young women, who had known each other for years, raised up at Grace, thriving in the Lord..."

I wept because of the beauty of it. Because I hope some day I will write these things to my daughters. There is nothing more honoring for a parent than to watch their children grow into their own relationship with God--to see them go out into the world and live lives that please the Lord, that seek to know and follow Him. And I just thought--how wonderful will it be to stand with my friends, my sisters, before the church that raised us to say, God took care of us. You prayed and He is faithful. You loved us and in it, we saw the love of Christ and here we are, chasing Him still.

I owe much to my parents. I owe much to the church family who also took me as their child. I owe the utmost praise to God for blessing me with all of them.

Then, my family at Shoreline. I looked over at Harper the other day and realized that when I first met all of these people, his mother was just starting to show. I have watched him grow. And with him, my family grew, weaved together into the relationships that bless me every day. And I think maybe one day, should the Lord bless me in this too, this family will watch my own child grow in me, will be mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters to that child, will stand next to me to raise her too, and when she leaves our family and comes home for Christmas, she will stand before us all and say she learned the love of God here.

An Amazing Grace.