Everything is Grace
"If mourning and dancing are part of the same movement of grace, we can be grateful for every moment we have lived." Henry Nouwen
My husband was rolling me into an orthopedic appointment. While that is not where I wanted to be I said to him, "I could easily have been dead or in a wheel chair the past seven years since the stroke. I have my speech, sight, hearing and touch. God has been so merciful to me."
Henry Nouwen writes in his book Turn My Mourning Into Dancing-"We can claim our unique journey as God's way to mold our hearts to greater conformity to Christ. The cross, the primary symbol of our faith, invites us to see grace where there is pain; to see resurrection where there is death. The call to be grateful is a call to trust that every moment can be cleaned as they way of the cross that leads to new life. When Jesus spoke to His disciples before His death and offered them His body and blood as gifts of life, He shared with them everything He had lived-His joy as well as His pain, His suffering as well as His glory-and enabled them to move into their own mission in deep gratitude...Day by day we find new reason to believe that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ...Grateful people learn to celebrate even amid life's hard and harrowing memories because they know that pruning is no mere punishment, but preparation."
I am praising the Lord I was able to walk, unassisted and pretty much pain free, into a wellness center this morning and get in the therapy pool!
The Song
