Sunday, February 15, 2009

Sunday Grace

Last weekend, we were out of town so I missed posting my Sunday Grace. In Seattle, we hooked up with some old friends for dinner and also had a blast re-discovering Seattle.


I'm beginning to get a little ansy for Spring. I've dragged out my bike and have been riding to work on nice days. I've been going to Portland Nursery more often. For valentine's, we bought two espalier fruit trees, apple and pear. I'll blog about them later because they are so cool and deserve a posting of their own. I have my seed packets and they are bursting to become real live plants. We've begun the re-design of our backyard to make room for chickens, which makes me giddy (yippee!).

Today in church, the series on grace continued. The pastor talked about grace as being unmerited and unlimited. In other words, God gives us His grace through His Son and there is nothing we can do to earn it and He does it freely and abundantly. This is a hard concept for our culture. We are always striving (that's me), we have do something, we have to be "better", we have to "do" better to earn His favor. There is always a strong pull toward thinking this will get us into God's good graces and earn His love. Because we fail at being perfect, this leads to shame and disappointment. The beauty is that God is not asking for perfection. He wants to be with us in our brokeness and show us how to live without shame or striving or doing. I'm working on allowing myself to sit in his grace, to soak it up and relish it. Hopefully, He will begin to transform my heart and mind along the way. I'm still workin' on it.


Sammy

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Sunday Grace

Grace is limitless in it's power to transform lives.
My pastor said that statement this morning and it really stuck with me. I LOVE grace, what would we do without grace? We wouldn't be able to function, we could never be transformed. I know that I am being transformed by God's grace, but I also see the imperative to reflect His grace back out of my life into others. I am so imperfect and people extend grace to me every day, people I don't even know. Karl extends grace to my cranky, imperfect self ALL the time. What does it mean to really show and exhibit grace? I'm workin' on it. Hope you are too.
Confession to make: I have been so un"gracefilled" the last few days. Apologies to my sister and to my husband. Sometimes I don't know how you can stand me.
Sammy

First Hat

Yippee! I finally knit my first ever hat. I probably shouldn't have knitted the "first ever hat" for my favorite person (Karl). It's not perfect, not even close. The pressure was getting to me a little bit; but he loves it and it looks smashing on him.

Now that I have the pattern down and know a little more something about knitting hats, I'll try this pattern again. But first I'm tackling a different hat pattern today. It's a perfect activity for watching the super bowl (well, really just the commercials).

Knitting Rocks!

Sammy