Grace in Time of Sorrow

So many times we forget about grace when going through difficult situations. We have short tempers and we mope around in self-pity but yet we expect to pick up right where we left off without having any difficulty getting back to normal life. You may not feel like being nice or don’t look for the good things in life; yet God wants us to do these things. How can we expect him to change things when we can’t even change our own attitudes?

We need to pray and ask God to change our heart. Also, ask for him to open your eyes and hearts to the everyday graces and thank him continually. Once we start getting into the habit of praising God our sorrows will seem little compared to all the graces you’ve so recently discovered. As Paul said in Romans 5:3, More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance. I don’t know about you but I need endurance.

Finding grace in time of sorrow is the hardest thing to do but it is worth it!

~Samantha

A Grace Filled Life

By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 1 Corinthians 15:10 ESV

The verse above, especially the first ten words, is my motto for this year. “By the grace of God I am what I am”, what a satisfying feeling it is to know that God has infinite grace that he gives to me everyday and all day! “For apart from me you are nothing” (John 15:5b). Without God working in me by filling me with grace, I am nothing.

Continually throughout the day I am having to pray for God to help me show grace to others when I get frustrated with them. When I do that it is like a burden is lifted and then I am then able to show grace more freely. Once the burden is lifted you can not only show grace but see the different graces around you.

In the devotional One Thousand Gifts , Mrs. Voskamp talks about looking daily for all the graces God has for you. Be it big, small, extravagant or simple they are all gifts of grace from God our Father. We need to be full of gratitude to fully see them. Thanking God during the hard times and the good times.

God Bless!

~Samantha

Word of the Year/Month

There is a thing that floats around on media at the start of every year. It’s where you choose a word for the year and you try to live by it. So I decided I would try it out; so I chose the word faith. I am having to put great faith in God for a lot of things that I am having to make decisions about this year. I already had to give up how I felt about something to God. It felt so amazing to do so! I had to put my faith in Him and trust him to bring it to past when the time is right for me.

On top of the word of the year God brought to me a word for the month… Grace. The word grace seemed to followed me everywhere. It was mentioned in a daily devotional app, the radio talked about it and then best of all I won a devotional book from MOHL called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp about reflections on everyday graces. I know I need to study further about grace so this book will help me out greatly. What a blessing it has been so far! It has only been six days into the new year and I have learned a lot from it and still am.

I hope to share with you what I am learning in hopes that it might encourage you too.

God Bless!

~Samantha