Clinging to grace

This morning I awoke thinking of the courageous women that fight this disease of breast cancer.

I thought of my friend Paula, who died 20 years ago, leaving two small boys and a loving husband behind.  The summer she died, Dave was fighting his battle against stage 4 metastatic melanoma.  She told me of her greatest experience of God's grace: that she was ready to say good-bye to her children.  "I know it is a hard place to be in," she said, "But where would we rather be than in the center of God's will for us?"

I prayed for Natasha, who has been living with metastatic disease for years, surviving to see her daughter grow. And she gets through every day-- some painful, some excruciatingly joyful-- by and with grace.

And I prayed and cried for L.B., a sweet cyber-friend who has just had to announce to all the people who love her that her cancer is back, and with a wicked vengeance.  "Jesus is the real deal," she says as she explains the extent of both her disease and the grace of God.

So this morning, I am clinging to grace, and trusting that the amount of grace God will provide to me will increase as my need for it does. He is able and willing.  He is Good.  And I am His.