903. For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I meet someone and look at his or her smile. ~Elie Wiesel

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I do not at all understand the mystery of grace –
only that it meets us where we are
but does not leave us where it found us.
~Anne Lamot

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Why I had an ischemic stroke in the fall of 2012, I know not. But why I’m still alive and suffer no residual damage from said stroke, I do know is solely because of God’s grace and mercy. And so as I approach the anniversary of that event each year, I find myself pondering, more intentionally, humanity’s desire for “life, love, and the pursuit of happiness.” I don’t know that I have any more answers about profound conundrums, but I am always grateful, as another birthday approaches, that I have been given the chance to continue my quest in search of them. What I can say at this point however, is that words like “patience,” “enough,” “slow down,” “gratitude,” “love,” “giving,” “simplify,” “goodness” and “grace” have all exponentially increased in importance in the last three years. And of those, “love” is as Petrarch said, “the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good.” As for “grace” and why I am the recipient of the Lord’s amazing grace, it is a topic as stated by Lamott and the Apostle Paul, that’s hard to understand, that cannot be exhausted, and that mystifies me as to why I, so underservedly, continued to live in a state of grace upon grace upon grace upon grace…

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The apostle Paul never seemed
to exhaust the topic of grace –
so what makes us think we can?
He just kept coming at it
and 
coming at it from another angle.
That’s the thing about grace.
It’s like springtime.
You can’t put it in a single sentence definition,
and you can’t exhaust it.
~Max Lucado

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. ~Excerpt from 1 Corinthians 15:10  ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collage by Natalie

 http://https://youtu.be/Qni5bIN5qmU

27 thoughts on “903. For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I meet someone and look at his or her smile. ~Elie Wiesel”

  4. This is a very lovely post. Like you, I have pondered why I am still here. There are so many times in my past the our Lord has covered me with his protective hands. I guess you could say I was a ‘Wild Child’ in my youth and so many times my adventures could have been my end. Praise God for his interventions and protection.

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    • Oh, me too, V. There are so many times that my life could have ended and didn’t. Like a cat we must have 9 lives, but sadly I think mine getting close to running out by now. Indeed, I praise the Lord for both our lives and friendship. Love and hugs, N 🙂 ❤

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    • Yeppers, a surgeon had to remove two clots from by brain. They told my family that I would die without the surgery and that I could die from the surgery, but the Lord guided the surgeon’s hands so that the artery walls were not damaged during the procedure. Thus I was not left with any residual physical or emotional damage. The only thing that changed, and this is kind of funny, was my spelling. I used to be a champion speller, and now I often have to stop and think about how to spell a word or even actually look it up in a dictionary. I never had to do that before. My daughter thinks that’s quite funny and says that now I’m just like everybody else. Oh well, if that’s all it cost me, I’m good with it.
      So I truly do live as the result and in Grace. Love’n hugs, LMS 🙂 ❤

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      • Well I’m glad that after all that you’re still here LMS, you bring some light to my life and I’d say many others too. Ruined your spelling eh? Now that would be downright annoying, lucky but annoying.
        Love’n Hugs
        Laurence.

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    • Thanks, Wendy! And I often wonder why He bothers with me too. But like you I’m so glad He does! The last three years have brought me so many lovely people via my blog and I would have hated not getting to know any of you! Love and hugs, N 🙂 ❤

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