Extra Ordinary Grace

Grace is available for each of us every day - our spiritual daily bread -
but we've got to remember to ask for it with a grateful heart
and not worry about whether there will be enough for tomorrow.
- Sarah Ban Breathnach

Grace comes in many forms. When I was a young teenager in Lutheran confirmation class, I was taught to remember the meaning of "grace" through the mnemonic device of an acronym:

G - God's
R - Riches
A - At
C - Christ's
E - Expense

It is one of those little tidbits of information that you store away in the filing cabinets of your mind for future reference and add it to the "general knowledge" folder...but in actuality it does little to help a person fully grasp and understand the concept behind the word. I am no longer Lutheran (that is a story for another day), but one of the local Lutheran churches in our area has given out blue bumper stickers with white letters that simply read, "GRACE Happens." I usually find myself behind one of these cars in traffic when I most need to be reminded of that fact and I think that, in and of itself, is an act of grace. Grace is not a concept that the average teenage confirmand can really, truly understand. Grace is something that does, just happen. Grace is something that one who has a relationship with our Saviour experiences through the trials and tribulations of life. We don't earn it or deserve it, but when we need it most, God knows, and it is there!

I have alluded to my impending life changes in several of my previous posts, and because I have experienced God's grace in the last week or so, I can talk about it more freely now where I was previously without words. Regarding my present life situation, I said to a friend two weeks ago, "There's a fine line between courage and crazy and only by the grace of God will we (my husband and I) end up on the right side of that line." To which she responded, "BTW, it takes both...Courage AND Crazy!" I have asked several people that I feel close to to pray for me in the preceding weeks, when I have at times been without words to pray for myself. If someone were to ask me today, however, I think I would confidently say that yes, we will end up on the right side of that line.

Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times. - Martin Luther

On the eighth of June, my husband, who has been a high school band director for the past fourteen years, fifteen really, if you count his student teaching and substitute teaching (he was a December graduate) before he landed his first full time position, announced to me that he was going to resign from his job and not just his job in the sense of his present position, but in the sense of changing careers. This was not a complete surprise as it has been an extremely difficult year in working with his parent organization or less aptly named "Booster Club," as they have done little to actually "boost" the organization and in several cases have actually hindered the program this year. I choose, however, in my post here not to focus on all of the minutiae that lead to this decision but rather on my reactions to it as it is not my story to tell. If you are interested to know, as Paul Harvey announces over the radio airwaves, "The Rest of the Story," you may read my husband's blog as he is chronicling what he calls his mid-life journey. As a side note here and brief commercial: he is an excellent writer and his blog, just two and a half weeks old, has already developed quite a global following and community of readers and he has received the "Thinking Bloggers Award" and the "Blogging Community Involvement Award," so check it out sometime.

Needless to say, my initial reaction to this announcement (even though we had talked about the possibility in vague generalities in the past few months) was shock, fear, anger - not at my husband, but at the people who have made his chosen life career something which he no longer loves -, distraught. Phew! None of those emotions are desirable to experience. My thoughts went to mortgage payments, health insurance, gas for our car, food, all of those things which cost money, money we would have much less of now. Up until this point the income from my 32 hour a week job had been a bonus, not something upon which we were dependent. Now looking at the possibility of it being our only income, it will not meet all of our financial needs alone. He told me that he strongly felt that God was calling him away from his current work so that he would be able to do something else, but he does not know what that something else is yet. As a result our living room and bedside table quickly became littered with such books as:

• Awakening At Midlife - Kathleen A. Brehony
• Find Your Purpose, Change Your Life - Carol Adrienne
• Finding Your Own North Star - Martha Beck
• Life's a Bitch and Then You Change Careers - Andrea Kay
• Practical Intuition - Laura Day
• The Pathfinder - Nicholas Lore
• Welcome To Your Crisis - Laura Day
• When Life Changes or You Wish It Would - Carol Adrienne

Then he asked me one of the more difficult requests of our married life, "Can you please give me two weeks to just work through this on my own, without any input, and then, when I am ready, I'll invite you back into the process?" As scary as that was, I said, "Yes, I can do that," and I left the discernment process to be simply between my husband and the Lord.

On Wednesday, June 13, I awoke with the words of Matthew 6:25-34 on my tongue. It was the first I had really begun to feel any sense of God having a say in all of this, but still I was not completely convinced. On Tuesday, June 26, while working (during my daily drive back from picking up the office mail), I was not really thinking about any of this at all when all of the sudden I just got a complete sense of peace about what was about to occur. I don't know where it came from other than the grace of God, but I was soon to find out why. Later that day, my husband met with a friend he considered to be "wise counsel," the first he had really invited anyone in to the discernment process and two hours later, he was pretty convinced of his decision - to resign from his career. I know that God gave me that peace because now I would need to be a strong support and a "soft place to fall." Since that time I have really felt no fear, apprehension, nor anything other than "This is what we are supposed to be doing." Ironically, my husband has since, through the process of drafting his resignation letter and cleaning out 14 years of accumulated stuff (eight at his present location), acquired some fear and apprehension of his own and I have been able to be the one who can say, "It's all going to work out. It's okay. You are doing the right thing."

Grace Happens! It happens when you least expect it. I don't know yet where we are going or what we will be doing three or even six months from now, but I know that God will be with us, and that's all I need to know, for now. I am beginning to even experience a sense of adventure, new beginnings offer new hope and new possibilities and new opportunities, right?

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" - Matthew 6:25-27