Slowly

Slowly, ever so slowly, I'm crawling towards grace.  The crawling seems to be what best describes my movement.  It's slow, laborious at times, and with the knowledge that I am still so much in the baby stage of grasping this mind-boggling gift called grace. 

This afternoon there seemed a gentleness of the presence of God and Jesus.  I generally find them both to be taskmasters.  Of course this is wholly because I live so much under my own laws and my need to keep my pencil ready to scratch off another check mark.

But I am so intent on not living here anymore.  I am purposefully seeking grace.

Today I met with my Spiritual Director again.  She is truly a gift from God in my life.  Shauna Niequist, in her book, "Cold Tangerines", shares these words..words I resonate with:

"My friend goes to a spiritual director, and I was asking her about it, and she said, basically, Sister Carmen asks her to talk about her life, and she points out the presence and action and grace of God when my friend didn't even notice it was there.  So it was there all along, and the trick is learning to see it.  
Each one of our lives is shot through, threaded in and out with God's provision, his grace, his protection, but on the average day, we notice it about as much as we really notice gravity or the hole in the ozone.  So what I'm trying to do is learn to see the way Sister Carmen sees.  Because once you start seeing the faithfulness and the hope, you see it everywhere...And little by little, here and there, you realize that...all of life is littered with bits and stories of God's goodness."

This is what I experience when I sit with my Spiritual Director.  I feel somewhat like a schoolgirl(except that I don't recall having had a desire to learn at that point in my life.  But now, when it comes to my spiritual journey, I am aching to learn.  And being in the presence of one who is so very gifted in imparting Christ to me, is incredibly gratifying.

So I keep crawling.  And I'm okay with that.  I think this process needs to be slow and methodical; an integral part of the preparation for walking in grace. 

"Spirit of the Living God,
I live this day in the presence of your truth,
by the power of your grace,
with thanksgiving for the longing
I have for you and
the longing you have for me.
Drench me, shape me, move me.
Amen."
--Pamela Hawkins
"The Awkward Season:  Prayers for Lent"