Sufficient for You

The background nausea was unrelenting. I'd be going through the motions of normal life when larger waves of grief and anger would crash over me, making my stomach pitch precariously. I missed her, but more than that I was in turmoil over the Keiser's wifeless, motherless existence and all that it meant. "What was God thinking?! How can I fix it?!" were my unconscious questions. I knew I couldn't fix it, nor could I know what God was thinking, so I never sought an answer, but the nausea rolled with every glimpse at their present and future devoid of Heidi.

Mark and I took advantage of an opportunity to get away for a week. I wasn't planning on being intentional about using any of that time to process...anything. I needed to simply be. I was actually a bit apprehensive that God might have other plans. Mercifully, He didn't. However, he relieved the nausea by reminding me of a lesson we all learn in school that He'd previously highlighted but I had recently forgotten: 

Keep your eyes on your own work. 

This time, he added more explicitly, "My grace is sufficient for you." (emphasis mine)

In those two short sentences, He reminded me that I am not privy to His grace at work in anyone else's life; that mystery is between each individual and Him, alone. We might recount His provision, but it can not be measured nor experienced outside of our own hearts. Whatever grace He is offering me is sufficient for me and, I might add, for now. He re-called me from peering into the graceless chasm of the unknown future of other people's lives, or even my own presumptions about their present, back to the present moment of my own life. The greatest gift I can give the Keisers, my own family, or anyone at all, is to accept the grace God is offering me, not least so I can extend myself in love supported by grace, (rather than teetering on fear, anger, and nausea.)

My own waves of grief will continue coming, and I can't fix the gaping wound that is the loss of Heidi, but on these stilts of grace fashioned only for me, I can love, serve, and most importantly, beg for grace for Kevin and the kids. God has promised it, so I choose to trust that He is - and will be - providing it. All I can know is what He is offering me: the grace that is here, now. Come Holy Spirit.