What is surprising about all this is that I have not been seeking for healing or praying for such inner work. The grace of healing is just HERE. This is a perfect example to me of God's grace - totally unearned. Divine Grace was working within me, without me knowing it, healing me in unknown ways. This is God, who is working in each one of us, loving us into the people he wants us to be.
That is just how I have found it to be over the last couple of years. God has met me where I least expected it - in ways I had never expected, that I had not the intelligence or the spiritual insight to imagine - with the gift of limitless grace, often in circumstances that at first looked to have no redeeming features whatever.
Jan quotes Julian of Norwich's beautiful line from Chapter 27 of The Revelations (I'm using my favourite Sheila Upjohn translation) "The cause of all this pain is sin. But all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."
This passage always brings me straight into one of my essential verses of Scripture, one where this unsought, un-thought-of grace appears most clearly, Romans 8.28: "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose."
Grace in the hardest places, mercy where we least expect it: the unsearchable riches of Christ, the mystery hidden in God. (Ephesians 2.8-9 NIV)
2 comments:
Thank you for writing about my gift of unexpected grace. You expanded it for my further appreciation. I also really, really like the translation you have of Julian's great words. Thank you for sharing in my wonder and gratitude.
Here's my postscript--I've ordered Sheila Upjohn's translation already! Thank you, Mike.
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