Mercy-full Notes
The snow fell suddenly a couple of weeks ago - and this time, it didn’t melt away.
The clouds seemed immoveable above us, grey and hard and unyielding, while the temperatures dropped below freezing, below -10, and then even further, shocking to skin not yet used to -20…
The Baker-four convinced me to pull out the decorations, and I opened a box that held a Christmas tree that wasn’t our own - that stood in our living room in years past,, but to the delight of a different family, a different story that held different traditions and emotions and heartache and dreams.
I wrestle between feeling like an intruder, while being grateful for what was left behind, that has so sweetly become our own.
I lit the candle for Hope last night, while our Jesse Tree still stands bare. I saved the branches from the previous year and they are now brittle and light and dry. And the one candle flickers in the dark and I feel it deeply. Sometimes hope wavers and sputters and sways. But as the wax softened, the flame grew strong, and the one ornament, pointing to the Root of Jesse, was no longer encased in shadow.
As I drove home in the snow this evening with eggs and tomatoes and cabbage tucked safely in the passenger seat, I listened to the question being asked over the speakers in the quiet of my car,
“Is God still good when the outcome isn’t? Can He still be trusted when the answer is not what was hoped for?”
I’ve found myself praying for mercy in the quiet of the morning…and in the chaos of the evening moments as everyone is trying to get their last thoughts in before the house goes silent for the night.
Mercy is on my tongue as I hold my mug of coffee, as the Bible is held in my hands, while math problems are being worked through, and the fire is fed one more log.
There’s reason for this need for mercy, there are months behind me filled with the same plea, the same request, the same weight on our shoulders that presses in close, tempting our hearts to distrust the Hand that led us here.
The sun broke the edge of the horizon a morning or two ago, as I sat in the cold watching a fire fight to burn, to heat, to warm these walls that hold the ones I love, that held the ones loved before us - it broke the horizon, slicing through the space between the two houses to our left, resting it’s pink glow on the edge of my chair, on the curve of my shoulder - and it was there that I knew the truth of it -
Right now is mercy. This very moment is the mercy that I have been praying for.
Oh, maybe not the specific prayer about the specific situation, but this very moment was a gift of mercy that has been freely poured out on me, on us.
The One Who created the sun and calls it to rise each morning, set that sleepy beam on my shoulder nudging me to look up and see all the good that He is done.
His mercies are new every morning.
Nothing can separate us from His love.
We are safely held in the refuge of His unfathomable mercy.
This afternoon, my mom told me of a sign an uncle and aunt have hanging over their dining room table - a sign carved by my uncle’s father, and it states simply, “Thy grace is sufficient”.
And it is - God’s power is made perfect in our weakness. What feels light and brittle and dry, like the Jesse Tree branch nestled in the corner of my living room, holds His grace as the flame of hope burns brightly on.
Yes, pray for mercy, but also give thanks for the mercy that surrounds you, even now.
