Day 38

Grace, Skittles and a Different Type of Grace

This is my own personal bag of Skittles. I carry it with me pretty much everywhere I go. Why a bag of Skittles, you ask? I carry these with me because of a story I heard about grace and skittles. This is a Beth Moore story from her own personal experience, but it is an important message that I took to heart. We heard this a couple of months ago during our Thursday morning Women's Bible Study. 

Back after Hurricane Katrina made such a mess in Louisiana, there were many hardships, tragedies, major life changes, and hard, hard trials. Some people were lost, temporarily or permanently. Some were uprooted and transported to strange, foreign places where strangers were waiting to help lend a hand, food, clothing, lodging, or perhaps just an ear to listen and give sympathy, love, and encouragement. One place that these displaced souls were sent is to the Houston Astrodome where they were provided shelter, food, aid, and assistance. That is where Beth comes in. She arrived to volunteer and was paired up with a woman. This poor woman had lost some of her family in New Orleans, she had lost her home, she had lost her job. Having no where to go and facing the uphill battle of restarting her life from scratch. It's hard for me to do, but can you imagine losing EVERYTHING - nothing left except maybe the one set of clothes that you are wearing? Beth shared how this poor woman seemed to be handling everything in stride. How she appeared so strong. Beth believes the Lord was covering her with His grace to give her strength to make it through this deep, dark valley. He was guiding her with His own personal hand and lifting her up with His strength. Beth's job during this time was to take her to various agencies to apply for aid, find housing, and anything else she needed. Later in the afternoon Beth took her back to the Astrodome where she would be spending the night. Before entering, the woman had to go through a security check which was a normal procedure. However, this woman had a bag of Skittles in her purse. A normal, innocent, small bag of candy. The guard saw the Skittles and informed her that she would need to throw them into the trash before entering the Astrodome. What??!!?? Why couldn't she bring in her candy? Sorry, outside food is not allowed - has to go into the trash. This poor woman - no house, no money, no job, no family, no roots, and now......her skittles?? Sorry to say, but she just SNAPPED - and went through a total and complete meltdown. Now we might scoff and say how ridiculous. She was losing it over a bag of skittles. But the lesson here for me.... is to not allow a "bag of skittles" to cause me to lose it. Our "bag of skittles" might be an unkind word someone said to us, a flat tire, a driver cutting us off, a long line at the grocery store, a sick child, or maybe an extra task dropped in your lap. Our Lord will provide us grace for WHATEVER happens to us in the proper amount at the proper time. Let me repeat that: IN THE PROPER AMOUNT AT THE PROPER TIME. Have you ever heard someone say, "I don't know how you handled that, if it had happened to me I don't know if I would do the same thing." Well, if something is not happening to you, you don't need a big dose of the grace of the Lord. You need enough to get you, personally, through your day. But, be assured that He WILL provide it if and when you need it. And hey! good news! If you need it for the next day He has a whole new supply of exactly what you need. And for all the rest of life's ups and downs, don't let your "bag of skittles" become your undoing.
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Wade seems to be doing good. He is in the middle of a dust storm today and has posted a picture of it on his Facebook page. That's pretty intense, they have work stoppages from dust storms over there and the last one knocked out his internet service for a while too. 
I had a good night, more or less, at Wednesday night Bible Club. I had a misstep in the parking lot on my way to class and fell down good and hard. (You might say I was full of grace! ha-ha) Scared the stuffing out of Jaide & Jared. Also more kids jumped out of cars and came running to see if they could help. I dumped my nice big, old cup of coffee - drat!!! I had to suffer with Diet Pepsi from the machine - yuck!! But I finally was brave enough to look at my knees when I came home tonight - I am having trouble bending one of them and there is a big old goose egg on my knee. I'm hoping that it will go down tonight, but if not, then I'll just go have it looked at tomorrow. Don't you just love it when you can manage to fall in front of a million people?? It's my favorite thing.