The culmination of Jars of Renewal — four Christmas baskets filled with homemade goodies being delivered today.
I was reading scripture I’ll be teaching at church this morning and it specifically mentions two turtle doves. Coincidence? Nah. Amazing is more like it.
So, Joseph and Mary had to pay God two turtle doves when Jesus turned 30 days old to officially buy him back from the Lord — per Jewish tradition. Isn’t that fascinating? I didn’t know anything about this until I was researching Simeon and Anna and how to present, once again, a daunting topic to children. Today’s I’m to speak of Anna’s grace.
This got me thinking — grace. It’s a concept I’ve only recently begun to understand. How should I explain this to a gaggle of noisy, Christmas-hyped children? I started thinking about ways I experienced grace as a kid, even though I didn’t recognize it then.
- That immediate sense of relief and joy diving into a cold pool on a scorching day
- The first time I held my baby brother
- That breath-taking moment between jumps on a giant trampoline
- The smell of wet desert
- The sneaky joy of catching your parents in a private look and witnessing their love
- The ocean or Grand Canyon for the first time and that moment when you think, “No! It can’t be!”
Grace is easier to understand as an adult — I find myself feeling that spiritual presence when instead of being characteristically impatient, I take a deep breath and keep listening, don’t flip the person off in traffic, stop to speak to a homeless person in need of conversation as much as change.
Here goes nothing!
~K