Touched by Grace

• This is a song I wrote a few weeks ago after having the opportunity of going downtown and sharing the love of Jesus with those living on the streets.  
  
  
  Touched by Grace
  words and music by Terha Knittel
  copyright 2012
  
  
  all who are broken
  wounded by life and
  living alone on this night
  if you are hungry
  cold and discouraged
  come to the Savior
  come to the Light
  
  beautiful light
  beautiful love
  beautiful truth to believe
  beautiful comfort
  hope and forgiveness
  beautiful grace to receive
  
  come receive from Him
  life that's worth living
  come taste the feast He prepares
  come drink of water
  filled with His goodness
  come let Him clothe you with
  garments of praise
  
  beautiful light
  beautiful love
  drawing you into new life
  beautiful rescue
  peace and abundance
  beautiful hands reaching you
  
  those who've received Him
  who walk in His freedom
  those who have feasted on
  His bread of life
  look all around you
  lives lost in darkness
  we are the salt and the light
  
  beautiful light
  beautiful love
  beautiful voices of praise
  beautiful rest
  beautiful healing
  beautiful lives touched by grace

Necessary Inconvenience

Inconvenient: 1) not easily accessible or at hand: The phone is in an inconvenient place. 2) inopportune; untimely: an inconvenient time for a visit. 3) not suiting one's needs or purposes: The house has an inconvenient floor plan

troublesome, awkward, or difficult

Can any good come from inconvenience?  This hardly seems possible since by it's very definition the word inconvenient appears so negative.  Not convenient, not opportune, not timely, troublesome, awkward, difficult .... that's a lot of negative.  And yet, we happen upon inconvenience quite frequently. 

This morning I was notified by my heating pad that it was no longer willing to provide heat.  I am heating pad dependent.  My husband says I'm like a reptile that needs a heat rock.  Sometimes I like the use of heat on an aching muscle and often I just like, for no particular reason, the warmth a heating pad generates.  So this morning I was greatly disappointed that, even though the little red light was "on", the heating pad was not fulfilling it's intended purpose.  

And then I remembered an older heating pad that I pretty certainly believed was in the closet.  

What I thought was going to be a momentary glance over the shelves to locate the brightly colored orange and yellow heating pad turned into an inconvenient thirty minute clean-up.  Although I didn't immediately see the heating pad I did notice a white cord that looked promising.  As I attempted to find what I was hoping would be the heating pad at the end of the cord I set off an incredible avalanche of items that spilled out onto the closet floor.

Unfortunately, the main item to fall was my little sewing basket.  It's not actually a sewing basket but rather a lovely little basket one of my sisters-in-law made years ago.  Since I am not a seamstress and have little hopes of becoming one, I have never had a real sewing basket...the kind with a lid.  

As I began the arduous task of locating and gathering all of the needles, pins, buttons, spools of thread, etc. I realized that this inconvenience was, in all honesty, necessary.  It was necessary for me to organize my "sewing" supplies more properly.  Organizing a sewing basket would make it easier to find what I'm looking for when the kids need something from my sewing basket AND with a secure lid there would be less chance of the contents spilling all over my closet floor again.  (note to self:  since I don't use the contents of the sewing basket and only have one to store items the kids need, maybe I should just set each of them up with their own baskets ...)

The inconvenient mess and subsequent clean up....One more inconvenient phone call or last minute change in plans that totally mess up an intact schedule....Children who, at the very last possible moment, show up at the door ready to leave for church with clothes that either do not match, do not fit, are not in season or just plain look goofy.  We deal with inconveniences all of the time.  On second thought, maybe we encounter inconveniences but don't deal with them so well.  

When I am inconvenienced there seems to be an opportunity for me to grow. The question is - will I take the time to find the good that can come with the untimely, inopportune, troublesome, inconvenient, difficult interruptions that cause me discomfort? An inconvenience can reveal a change that needs to be made.  Maybe I need to be a little more organized, a little more patient, a little less self-centered.  I have a feeling I should accept that the inconveniences that come may, at times, be necessary. 

And I'm sure glad I noticed the straight pin that landed inside one of my shoes.

definition provided by Dictionary.com