GRACELAND

There are tough days in life.  Yesterday was one of them - a culmination of some struggles over the past week.  I have been on a grace journey most of my life (as we probably all are).  But, have been in serious grace training the past year and a half.  God keeps literally calling me to Graceland in situations that keep coming into my life.  I sensed God's voice in my spirit yesterday morning early - "There is more coming. I am asking you to go to Graceland again."  To be honest, I didn't like what I sensed from God - that He was going to ask me to give grace yet again.  It had been costly to travel to Graceland.  I wondered what God meant, "there is more coming"?  What would I be asked to lay down?  What right to express and be satisfied or justified would I need to walk away from?  What forgiveness would I need to give even if not asked for or undeserved?  The hurt came later in the day.  It was deep, rattling, devastating - taking me to a place of deep sobs.   I have heard God's voice (yes and James Earl Jones' voice is not what I hear!) in my head, heart and spirit with each circumstance that has been hard, hurtful, confusing or devastating over this past year and half journey of divorce and discovery.  He has continued to ask me to let Him have it and give grace.  Grace when I don't understand people's actions or words or silence or judgmental spirits or calculated chess moves in life.  As I dealt with a hurt yesterday that compounded an already open wound, I drove to see the daughter of a dear friend's cross country meet.  I prayed as I turned on the radio that God would speak to me - give me words through music.  If God had told me I would be asked again to visit Graceland, then I had to believe He would speak to me as I tried to get there.  The radio landed on a song I really was not familiar with musically, but lyrically looked and felt like my backyard.  "I will trust you even when I feel deserted..." the song said.  It captured at that very second, with a magnifying glass, what I felt and what my heart wanted to do - trust God.  I've said before that there is a 3 second television delay in what our head can know and choose, and what our heart feels and can't quite process.  I was there yet again.  I weighed all my options for reacting.  None of them were good.  None of them provided a grace solution to the hurt.  I called my sister in tears.  I spoke freely and openly about the hurt, the pain.  I told her about my call from God to Graceland again.  Then I said it out loud.... "I hate grace today!"   As I let it out my mind whirled with Jesus.  He could relate to Graceland.  He created that place at a deep cost to Himself.  He knew what it was to not retaliate, not get bitter, not seek revenge, not try to defend Himself.  He knew the cost of grace.  I didn't have to pay the Graceland cost alone.  He was there with me.  With that I knew eventually I could move on.  Eventually my head and heart would line up with one another.  I knew too that when I was in His Graceland I wouldn't leave empty.  God would seal the leaks, ease the weariness of laying down my rights and fill me up with grace.  Graceland wasn't just a place where I gave up my right to be justified, angry, reactive.  It was were Jesus resided - where I could get closest to the One who knew all about grace.