Let me be ever so clear on something. I am still amazed that God would even choose to use somebody like me.

 

Every day I walk into a beautiful ministry building that is full of His kindness to me and those I serve.

 

There was no good reason He should have chosen me. Not one.

 

Even today, 20 years later, it’s a miracle. You see, I know myself. I, just like many of you, struggle with patience and lack of knowledge at times. I wrestle with what others think of me, very often. I fear at times I didn’t counsel well a heart in need, or that I dropped the ball with someone counting on my attention.

 

I’ve wondered many times how I have wrecked so many things yet kept His favor.

 

Grace is hard to explain.

 

I do not take it for granted.

 

I am kept only because He chose me, and I didn’t choose Him. Before He formed me in the womb, He knew me. In me, He crafted by hand a mission for the Kingdom. It’s been pretty messy at times if I’m honest.

 

There are times I’ve begged out of my calling when the suffering few see is more than I can handle. I’ve been just like Elijah and pleaded for Heaven after full scale victories. Weariness and fatigue have overtaken me at times, and I have thought seriously about staying down for the count on many occasions.

 

But Grace kept speaking.

 

Grace is a God who has picked me up in His arms and carried me to the finish line again and again. Yet, Grace is the same God who chose to leave some painful thorns so I could minister better out of them. I’ve spent countless hours in prayer trying to cast out those same thorns. Deliver myself. Declare them gone. Yet He says, “My grace is sufficient.”

 

I’m grateful for Grace. It’s beautiful and lovely but can have, when necessary, a lion’s bite.

 

I’ve wept in His arms at times when I’ve foolishly rejected His counsel and suffered the consequences of my own choices. He didn’t get me out of them but He did get me through them with hard lessons to go share with those in need.

 

It’s been quite a journey with this God of Grace.