Frederick Buechner

Something More

| Marie Griffith

“Something perfectly new in the history of the Universe had happened. Christ had defeated death. The door which had always been locked had for the very first time been forced open.”  C.S. Lewis, Day 47 in Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter

Easter Sunday has come and gone. The season of Lent is over but my journey of reflection continues with the daily readings from the devotional. I’m in the “New Life” section of the book now.

Frederick Buechner writes on Day 52:  “In the end, his will, not ours, is done. Love is the victor. Death is not the end. The end is life. His life and our lives through him, in him. Existence has greater depths of beauty, mystery, and benediction than the wildest visionary has ever dared to dream. Christ our Lord has risen.”

God has something more for us. But it’s not out there somewhere. It’s not tomorrow or in a few years or decades from now. It’s not when you finally have the family you’re praying for. It’s not only when your marriage gets better or when the cancer is gone or when the kids behave. It’s not just when you’re free from the addiction. It’s not only when you’ve reached your goal or when you’re living your dream.

It’s here and now.

It’s in the everyday mess of your life. The laughter and tears and everything in between. It’s in the middle of your battle. When you’re fighting for faith and trying to find joy. It’s in the hard work of reaching your goals. It’s the crying out to God when you don’t understand. It’s when you’ve conquered and when you’ve failed. When you go from feeling all is right in your world to feeling it’s hopeless. It’s when you fall and get back up. And it’s when you have no strength left to get back up.

He’s the God of your every day. Right there with you in the midst of your routine and obligations. Because “what God began, God will not abandon.” Madeleine L’Engle, Day 56

Something more is here and now.

“Those who live victoriously, though they wait in great hope and expectation for the final triumph of God’s grace, live even more in present experience of what that grace in Christ can do in their lives here and now. ‘Today shalt thou be with me in paradise’ is no idle promise for an indefinite future but a simple statement of what Christ can and will do here and now if we put our trust in him and open our lives to his presence and his power.”      Howard Hageman, Day 50

 

 

Keep Track

Image | | Marie Griffith

 

He knows us far better than we know ourselves…….that’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.      Romans 8:28 (MSG)

 

How we look ahead has a lot to do with how we look back…..how we keep track of where we’ve come from and the people we’ve known and who have known us along the way.

Who we are now is because of who we were then. The people who raised us and taught us and the ones who hurt us. Our parents and siblings and childhood friends. Aunts and uncles and cousins. Our teachers and preachers or strangers and lovers. All of them had and some still have a part in our lives.

And because God gave us the gift of memory we can’t get around it. That’s just how it works. So it’s important to remember well and truly……the wonderful and happy and the scary and tragic. All the good and all the bad.

A gracious thing happens when you remember well.

The good memories are treasured. They come unexpectedly and make you smile. Sometimes they bring tears but it’s the sweet, cleansing kind.

The other memories….the painful ones and scary ones…..the lonely ones…….the dark ones……all of them can become a source of thankfulness and compassion.

Thankful….because you’ve either made it through or are making it through. And compassion for those who have endured or are enduring the same pain or darkness.

Because we either make our worst memories work for us or they’re going to work against us.

All of them make our story. God takes all of it and uses it for our good.

We just have to let Him.

“It is through memory that we are able to reclaim much of our lives that we have long since written off by finding that in everything that has happened to us over the years, God was offering us possibilities of new life and healing which, though we may have missed them at the time, we can still choose and be brought to life by and healed by all these years later.”      Frederick Buechner

In response to Beloved.

Grace

| Marie Griffith

“……and life itself is grace.” Frederick Buechner

What inspires me? I’ve pondered this and there are thousands of inspirations around me everyday. But the reason for those inspirations is grace.

Grace is why we have the things that inspire us.

How can a photograph capture the air in my lungs? Or the sound of laughter? Or adequately express the joy of new parents?

I can’t photo the warmth of a campfire or truly capture the awe inspired by star-gazing.

The mystery of marriage or the connection of friendship can’t be photographed. Neither the triumph of victory or the “coming through” of a dark season of life or the endurance of someone suffering physical or emotional pain.

Or love. The kind that transforms us and causes us to want to be better than we are. The kind that is so deep and high and wide.

It’s grace.

And the One who created all of it is the grace-giver. He is why we enjoy every good thing. He’s the mountain maker and the One who fills the oceans. He made every living creature on land and in the seas.

He gives us rainbows and roses. He gives us Dads and dandelions, sisters and seashells, babies and ponies. The moon and blue moons, too.

He’s the One breathing life into each one of us. The One who loves us, came down to us, and died for us.

That’s grace.

Grace is here. Now. All around us.

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God, Creator of the heavens – he is, remember, God – Maker of earth –
He put it on it foundations, built it from scratch.
He didn’t go to all that trouble to just leave it empty, nothing in it.
He made it to be lived in.             Isaiah 45:18 (MSG)

In response to The Daily Post’s Profound.