Receiving God’s Grace

A friend was talking with me about God’s grace the other night, and I realized that I have been shown God’s grace many times in my life. Here is one time in my recent life that God’s grace has brought me great peace.

Almost two years ago I asked God to show me his love and grace. I was experiencing a low time in my spiritual life and needed God’s love to touch me like a lightning bolt. I am not one who usually asks God for his immediate voice, and I wasn’t sure if I would be given his immediate answer. It was about this time that the senior high Sunday school class I was teaching became involved in a one-day work project helping a single mother of three small children. This mother’s name is April, and little did I know that God was going to use April as the lightning bolt for my faith walk.

Over the last two years, I have had the incredible opportunity to witness April’s faith firsthand. She is younger than me, a mother of three and has experienced poverty, homelessness and imprisonment of her true love. She has been subjected to many people’s cruelty as they view her as someone not providing for herself. Through all of this, I have seen her “lean” on her Bible and take God’s word as the complete truth, without question. My spiritual walk has been richly blessed and has grown tremendously through God and my relationship with April. Many times people approach me and thank me for “helping April and her family.” This strikes me oddly since I was the one who received the most help.

As we approach the glorious morning of Easter, I ask God to open all of our hearts to see and be aware of God’s grace in our lives.

— Joan Fletcher