like one of those days in the middle of the winter, the kind that you can't run away from.

You can't force a blog.

You can, however, provoke one along with proper mood lighting, music, and snow.

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I tried to talk about grace on Tuesday night to my small group, which was especially small this week, but I didn't really say everything I wanted to say because my mind was so clouded with other things. Here goes.

Things lately have been so difficult. I've messed up. I've felt broken. I've tried to force myself to cry but have only done so for four minutes in Dane Jordan's office with everyone sitting in the other room, inches away.

People loose feelings. People move out and get divorced. People do things they wish they hadn't. People hold on for too long, only to make it worse in the long run. People don't get jobs. People get sick. People fall on the ice.

But in all of this, in the front of my mind has been the satisfying feeling that everything is going to be okay.

Grace is a marvelous thing.

Monday night I ran across the story of the woman who perfumes Jesus' feet and dries them with her hair. I think that I can relate to her more than any other woman in the Bible. This woman has lived in sin, and when she learned that Jesus was in town she knew that she had to see Him; that only he would love her undeserving self. She went to the house where he was staying, intent on finding this Savior. I can see her vividly in my mind. The scriptures say she was weeping, and I completely agree, but I more see her sobbing to the point of uncontrollable shakes. Like the dry-heaves, only in tear formation. She brought her alabaster jar full of perfume, and, combined with her tears, she cleaned Jesus' dirty, nasty feet. She dried them with her hair. And she kissed them; the feet of her Savior. Jesus tells her her sin are forgiven because she has loved him in a way no one else around did.

"Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines him to bestow benefits on the undeserving."
-A.W. Tozer.

God has given us his grace. We totally do not derserve it. We are sinful. Disgusting. Unclean.
But God sings his grace over us everyday. His grace IS sufficient. It's sufficient. It is all that we need.

The woman who anointed Jesus did so because it's all that she could do. Before that, she wasn't living in a way that expressed Christ's love or would make him want to love her. But he loved her anyway. She did what she could to show her love to Christ. He's already loved us. He's already taken away our guilt and shame and has given us the promise of new life completely with him.

Everything is going to be okay because God is good and his grace completely covers us.

Even though things stink right now and I wish with all my might that things were different for me and those closest to me, I know God has it all in control.

Even though things stink, would you be able to get down and kiss the feet of God? Could you forget yourself and only focus on him and the grace he gives you? Trust him completely with every bone and cell in your body? Would you crawl on the floor to find him?

all my
afflictions
are only
light ones
anyway now.

"Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart!"
Psalm 32:11

John Mark sang about it.