The painter’s brush strokes glide across the page to create a beautiful masterpiece. The quilter gathers scraps of fabric and pieces them together to make a gorgeous quilt. The film maker captures snapshots in a frame to build a video masterpiece. These are just some of the ways God uses individual’s gifts to make art; to make pieces into something whole.
Six months (and 4 days ago), I began a journey that was quite unexpected for me. It caused me to live in liminal space; between the what was and what was yet to come. I found myself standing in the midst of the fog searching to see where God might be leading me next. There were days I wondered if I would ever be able to find the light again.
Yet in the midst of this jagged grace, God showed up big time like God always does. As I stood 300 feet from the base of the mountain last June, a sense of holy peace fell upon me as the tears began to pour from my eyes. Standing there, as I laid the past behind me and began to reach for the future, a glimmer of hope opened the door to new possibilities. Ellie Holcomb’s words echo throughout the wide open spaces at the top of Estes Cone.
“We’ve buried dreams, laid them deep into the earth behind us. Said our goodbyes at the grave but everything reminds us. I know sweet ache when he asks us to go on. How do we go on?” (Ellie Holcomb-Red Sea Road lyrics)
We go on because in the midst of jagged grace, God blesses us beyond measure. God promises to never leave us or forsake us. God places incredible family and friends in our lives who wipe away our tears and give us a shoulder to cry on or simply a place to just be.
I remember sitting on the paddle boat on my friend EG’s farm. Together, in the stillness of the North Dakota prairie, I again found myself overcome with a deep peace that only comes from God; a deep peace that would sustain me in the coming days, months, and weeks.
In the midst of liminal space, or rather jagged grace, it can be so hard to find our way out of the darkness back into the light. Yet our God is a God who gives us the grace to be made whole again. Again in the words of one of my favorite songs “Beautiful Things” by Gungor, “God makes beautiful things out of dust; out of us.”
In the last six months, I have been dropped, molded, and shaped back into a beautifully broken but whole again child of God. This time of jagged grace has shaped me back into who and whose I am as a beloved child of God. But most especially, in this time of jagged grace, I have been made whole again. I am a living example of God’s kintsugi; the gold lacquer shining over my broken pieces and telling the story of God’s love for all people.
Six months later and after these 31 days, I now know the power of jagged grace. Jagged grace is indeed a grace that overcomes life’s obstacles. It is a grace that absolutely breaks forth and changes us. In fact, how can it not change us. This jagged grace is indeed a grace that sustains us all in our own brokenness and makes us whole again and again and again.
I stand here today, knowing that I am changed; transformed by jagged grace. I stand here knowing that, through jagged grace, I have been able to overcome many of the obstacles placed in my path. I stand here with the marks and scars of my own brokenness. And most of all, I stand here knowing that I am one of God’s masterpieces created to share God’s love with all the world especially in the midst of our times of jagged grace.
I am linking up with Kelly and the Ra Ra linkup, Jennifer and Tell His Story, Holley and Coffee for your Heart and Kristin and Porch Stories.