Our little church produces a bi-annual story-teller, where congregants can share stories, poems and items of encouragement. It is produced each Easter and Thanksgiving. This Easter, the theme is “Amazing Grace”.
Of course, this piqued my interest, my name being Grace (smile), and I must admit I have conversations about that almost every week. Often people tell me I am aptly named, given I work as a Chaplain in a hospital, and I usually joke back, “It is a hard name to live up to!”
But I do love my name… and the story goes I was not always named Grace. No, my mother named me Dianna Grace, and apparently even baby announcements went out with that name. But my maternal grandmother was dismayed, thinking that such a beautiful name might go to my head, and Dianna was the name of a goddess you know. So the legend has it anyway, and my name was dutifully switched… to Grace Eileen. Much more sensible. J
And to all my friends who are named Diane or Dianna… beautiful name, glad you got to keep it! (smile).
Eighteen years ago I fell in love… for the second time in my life. Not quite forty, widowed, and into my life entered a wonderful guy named Steve. We both thought it was hilarious that he had the same name as my son… and the same birthday, eighteen years apart. And Steve is such a great name.
We met at First Baptist… our current church, at a potluck Christmas supper hosted by a group called Singles for Christ. He had noticed me before, and it is an interesting tale, too long to share here, but we came to believe that God brought us together in a lovely way. That December night I invited him to sit by me (he looked lonely), and the rest is history.
That Valentines, our first together as a dating couple, he decided to buy me a present. The present was a newly released book by Philip Yancey called: “What’s So Amazing about Grace?”.
It was meant to be a sweet joke, but really, this book had an amazing impact on both of our lives. We both were recovering from traumatic events in our lives, and anticipating starting a new life as a blended family was daunting as well as exciting. We had a lot to work through.
And God’s grace had everything to do with it. We needed grace for ourselves, grace for each other, grace for our families, grace for living. If you haven’t read the book, I will say, it is one of the best I have ever read. Phillip Yancey is honest, challenging and dares to ask the difficult questions we are often thinking but don’t dare to say out loud.
So there is my story on grace God’s amazing grace that has touched me so deeply. It is from this well of grace that gratitude comes, grateful to God for His amazing provision in my life. And I’ve learned that grace is to be passed on… in abundance!
Grace and Peace… beautiful gifts we can share with each other every single day.
