There but for the grace of God

Reading an old issue of Time magazine in the gym while on the stationary bike, I came across an interview with Michelle Obama where she talked about growing up in Chicago,knowing many bright people who didn't make it and she said:

"you slowly see people slipping through the cracks, you know that there but for the grace of God."

...go I.

In the middle of my sunny gym, I felt the hot sting of tears in my eyes.

Staring through the haze of tears at the article, I thought - she knows. She's seen people fall, people who were friends, classmates, neighbours, campus mates. They slip up somewhere and are whirled away into a vortex of despair, self destruction and aimlessness. I've written about this before and it becomes ever clearer to me, every day, just what I've been rescued from and what I could have become.

Earlier this year, when I was dealing with some issues, MA and I took a walk down by a lake(or reservoir?) and I said the same thing to her

- I look at the past and people around me. I look at what I could have become, where I am now and I know.

There but for the grace of God, go I -

In case I ever forget, then let me put this up here and out there. I may whine about the small irritations of life- the crowds, rude pushy people etc, but I am utterly, out-of-my-mind grateful and happy for where I am right now. An upset tummy makes me grumpy, crowds make me tired. But in the deeping hush of the heart, there is a spinning joy, a centred eye of peace that has never ceased and God willing, will only grow.

The road is long and oh, this dying to self business is so hard. But.

I hang my life, my hope for a future, in these and much much more:

Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
He brings the princes to nothing;
He makes the judges of the earth useless.

He calls them all by name,
By the greatness of His might
And the strength of His power;
Not one is missing.

Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the LORD,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the weak,
And to those who have no might He increases strength.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall,
But those who wait on the LORD
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.

Isa 40:21-23, 26, 28-31

To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Col 1:27


Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Christus invictus.

Soli deo gloria.