Grace Defined

New year Continuing to hope!

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As I sit here in the waning hours of 2024 I find myself considering what the new year will bring. I hear the pop of fireworks going off and can see neighborhood houses lit up and filled with guests. In recent years with all that has been going on in our home I have often looked for a quiet place to sit and put down my thoughts about the year that is coming to a close.

This year I am more focused how 2025 will be different for our family. With all that has gone on in just the last few weeks everything has changed as to how my husband and I will be relating to our kids in the coming year. There is grief and hope all meshed together in what is going on. How our family looks has been changed forever. As I am watching the clock tick down another minute closer to the end of 2024 I am reminded that my hope should be in my heavenly family and not my earthly one.

Your year may be starting off much like mine as you hear people wishing you a Happy New Year, but it does not feel like it will be happy or new. The calendar may change, but you expect that not much else will. May I offer some encouragement to help bring you into the new year with more hope?

“But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!'” Galations 4:4-6 NASB

Remember who you are: You have been adopted into a heavenly family and are fully loved. You are covered by grace that came from Jesus’ sacrificial act on the cross. You have the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit living within you who prays for you when words are hard to come by. You have the right to cry out, “Abba Father!” and He hears you! Not only that, He sees our tears and He collects them in jars remembering our grief and working all things to His good purposes.

(Galatians 4:6, Ephesians 2:8, Romans 8:26, Psalm 56:9)

Knowing these things, I pray that you have hope in 2025. Specifically asking that the Lord will help you to pray for your children expectantly and boldly. That you would be filled with His joy and peace as you believe He is working in their lives. Trusting He will enable you to love them even when it is hard. That you would be filled with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Believing that the same Spirit will give you the strength to do the things that will point them ultimately to their Father in Heaven. Most of all, I pray that you will experience your Abba Father in new ways. That you will be given abundant reasons to be thankful. That you would experience the blessing of encouragement from other believers as you walk this journey with your wandering wayward children.

Hope for 2025! “Now may the God of Hope fill you with Joy and Peace in Believing, so that you will abound in Hope by the Power of the Holy Spirit” Romans 15:13 NASB

Here is a prayer from Every Moment Holy by McElvey that might help you as you work to pray expectantly in the coming year.

Momentary Liturgies for the Practicing the Presence of God: 

Upon Randomly Thinking of Another Person

God, as I hold _______
a moment in my thoughts,
I ask that you would hold them
eternally in yours,
remaining ever at work
in their heart and life,
even now directing their paths
toward your good ends.

Amen

From the book “Every Moment Holy” Volume 1 by Douglas Kaine Mckelvey; Rabbit Room Press, 2017

Tuesday’s Child

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For weeks now I have dreaded Tuesdays because that has been the day that my oldest child injects themselves with the hormone designed to change them physically into what they feel they are. This week another Tuesday morning rolled around…this Tuesday was different. I woke up in tears as my dreams took me on a journey through my deepest fears. I had been dreaming that I was speaking at their funeral. This on the morning celebrating their birth.

In the dream I was standing in the front of their friends who were gathered mourning the loss of my child and implored them to understand the love that God had for them. I told them how Jesus saw them so worthy of His attention, grace and mercy that He took the ugliness of our sin on Himself so that we could become beloved children of God. I spoke to them about their wounded hearts that may have even come at the hands of beloved children of God in their lives who only showed judgement against them. I pleaded with them to look away from those people and see only Christ who could heal those wounds. To ignore the lies whispered in their ears daily about their unworthiness that led them to walk away from the faith of their youth or reject that faith before it even began. I challenged the believers who were present to come forward and share the love of Christ with those who were in desperate need of that gift of acceptance.

I woke up crying, knowing that a funeral would be too late for my child. I prayed that they would be reminded of the faith they once had that was so winsome and true. As I lay in bed thinking and wiping the tears from my eyes, I was reminded again of the day they were born. It was also a Tuesday morning. There is an old poem that has a line that says, “Tuesday’s child is full of grace” and being a Tuesday’s child as well I always held that as a special link between us.

This morning God reminded me that I don’t need to dread Tuesdays. Just as I did 20+ years ago when I held that beautiful Tuesday’s child in my arms and thanked God. Today, I thank God that His grace is sufficient and He has not stopped pursuing the heart of my Tuesday’s child.

Take time today and thank God that He is still pursuing the heart of your wayward child. He knows your heart and hears your prayers. Hosea 14:4 (NIV) says, “I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them.”