We were in a shoe store, recently, shopping for winter boots and looking for the year’s best steals. It’s only January.  But for all the saving I found that day it was not the shoes we brought home that stuck in my memory as much as the words scribed on the arm of the salesperson.

“…your story is not yet complete;”

We talked about it on the way home together.  How it made me want to hear her story, all the brave and beautiful and broken that was woven into the memoir of her days which gave her courage to wear words on skin as declaration.

And to be honest I admired the strength of her resolve to not be finished with the story of herself despite her circumstances, whatever they may be. And I loved the way she smiled joy right into our day, even if we were buying up shoes that wouldn’t fit in our crowded closet when we got home.  Even if she was just doing her job, and probably didn’t think about the three of us giggling about all we ‘saved in our spending’ as we walked out.

Her bold confession witnessed right to my spirit about how we spend ourselves for Christ with our words and our stories and how we ought not hold them in away from the world because we are are afraid of not being enough.  Because that is a bold faced lie if there ever was one. And you ought to know you are awesome because you are  the image of the God remade in this world. Imago Dei.

Your yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a  letter from Christ…written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.- 2 Corinthians 3:2-3

We are influencers.

Every single one of us is made to influence others. We are made to speak grace  and life and hope and joy whether we use words or not.  Because living implies a collection of moments, not just one, which decorates the pages of our journey. And because #reallife is rarely scripted, it means that we will have good and bad and everything in between, and often times it’s the struggle that inspires others to keep going. So maybe the sharing the struggle is how we get free of us and get more of God and bring people with us on the journey.

What if we believed that our stories are a series of #gracemoments all building together into the memoir of grace He has poured over our days?

What if we looked at that sentence that we felt defined us, or held us up, or limited our future, and inserted a semicolon instead?

Sometimes there are moments that we keep and collect  and carry with us for a while, the kind that dwell in our hearts because we can’t quite process them but we know they are important and they will be pivotal at some point.  They are weighty yet weary for the wandering we log. They are the impossible or incomplete that knock on our door in the dark. They are the wish-we-could-do-over moments that keep us thinking.  Or they are the waiting kind, with the semicolons and commas and pauses that tell us there is more.

Right in the midst we must find the strength to choose, to continue, to take the next step on the journey. They are the telling places. The pieces of our now and yesterday and tomorrow. The parts that help us live and love and forgive all together.

So we keep them recorded. We remember their existence. We mark their importance.

Because these memories we make, the #gracemoments we live, from the experiences we know …they are all a part of the story that is us…. all the periods, and commas, and semi-colons and hashtags we write together.

And the story is made up of mountaintop victories, valley wanderings, wilderness waiting, and promise-land searching.  And maybe just maybe, it’s really about the collecting all those pieces together that will reveal the novel of His handiwork displayed right through our living as a work of inspiration for all those who pause and read it.

Because it’s surely grace that allows us read the stories we all write together, to see how He weaves the good and the hard together.  It is a redeeming grace, a resurrecting grace, a proving grace that shows us who we are.

And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” – John 8:32

I was resolution-wary before January began.

I didn’t want to spend time making goals and resolutions that would gather dust in my journal.

But I do want to resolve something…

I want to believe those red-letter words Jesus said.  I want to hold on to the truth and to be set free in the midst of this living. I want to believe that the more I devote to dwelling in the possibilities that His Word reminds us are true, being so bound up in looking through the prism of grace only God can bend… that these stories we write with the ink of our days can be a token of hope and a ticket to freedom for someone else. I want more of God.  I want to dwell with Him and to invite others to join me more and more.

What if we render the wasted to God and let the power it has held over us be broken completely?

What if writing was the way the Lord was going to enable healing to start in the weary places of your soul?

What if your story was the catalyst to someone else’s victory?

“Earth is a forgiveness school. Writing will heal you.”- Anne Lamott.

If we begin to look through the prism of grace on the story of our days, it will change the way we see everything.  What God sees as worthy becomes the lens through which we look. It makes it easier to see others that way, too. To see our story as necessary… worth scribing … readable…necessary. And it makes us want to write it, to let it be read, to realize there is nothing lost in Christ except this world.

Your life is inspirational.

You have so much that still needs to be said.

Stir up hope.

Invest love.

Donate grace.

Let’s tell our stories friends. What are the #gracemoments you are collecting this week?

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I created this journal/ebook: More of God for 2018 for you to jot down ideas and thoughts and words and prayers for the new year.  Join me as I look for More of God in 2018.  I hope it can encourage you and equip you to step into the brave and bold places as you seek Him more, pray more,  and give more grace in your world.

IT’S YOUR TURN TO BE A GRACE COUNTER! SHARE YOUR GRACE MOMENT IN THE COMMENTS BELOW AND THEN COUNT GRACE WITH A FRIEND WITH COMMENT ON A BLOG OR TWO.
If you are a blogger, link up here with a post about finding grace moments in your life or one of your favorite inspiring and encouraging posts from this week. Share your thoughts in the comment section telling me about the #Grace Moments you experienced this week. *(only 1 post per link please)*

Take time to visit your neighbor next to you, and if you want visit a few more friends on the journey. We all need a little encouragement and affirmation as we travel together.

If you don’t have a blog, you can connect with me via my Journeys in Grace FB page by sharing a photo or a comment. Or you can join the party by sharing your images on Instagram with #Gracemoments hashtag.

Each week I will try visit as many of your amazing posts as I can.This is a safe place to sit and dwell in grace together, friends. I can’t wait to pour a cup of friendship with you and take in the grace moments you have to share. Don’t forget to leave a comment below, I love to hear from you.

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