The Gift

We all tend to do a little looking back at this time of the year.  We count the milestones toward moving forward with our life and we sadly remember the moments which seemed filled with the kind of stuff which is overcoming.  Somehow we made it to what is near about the end of another year.  And as we look back at the whole thing, we know being here is about what it has always been and that is grace.  God's grace is surely the reason we are here on this earth with our famiies and with a measure of good health.    

There is, perhaps, no religious word which gets tossed around so casually as the word grace.  We sing "Amazing Grace" without realizing how amazing it really is for each of us.  Grace is not about what we have earned through our efforts, or through our educational achievements, but something which can only be rightly understood as a gift.  Grace is always all about what we do not deserve.  It is all about God's gift to us.  If we live, it is because  of grace.  If we die and enter our eternal home, it is because of grace.  Life is about grace.    

The bottom line is that the life we live is ours because of God's gifting spirit.  From the moment of our conception in the darkness of the womb until our eyes are opened to see the glory of heaven, we are being gifted by Him.  When the dark clouds of difficulty are hanging heavy in our life, it is hard to see that life is a gift of God's grace, but it remains true.  We are as dependent on God's grace as we are the air we breathe.  Actually, we are more dependent on grace for air is only good for this life and it is grace that sustains us here and will be sufficient to get us Home.