I was stunned yesterday by this brand new picture of our granddaughter, Kajsa Grace, sent me by her mother. I knew a Nikon camera had a lot to do with it, capturing so sensitively the nuances in a child's face. But without Kristin's sensitivity as a mother to the particular moment in which the shutter clicked, the Nikon could hardly have recorded what it did. And without the subject herself, neither photographer nor camera could have delivered the image thus beautifully captured.Only a child soon to be seven, Kajsa has been and remains a living reminder to all who have followed her life journey until now an incarnation of her middle name--Grace. No less a child than any other, and perhaps even more feisty than most having in her case to survive with half a heart, four major surgeries, frequent hospitalizations, and endless medications, she has developed the character of a survivor. And in her survival we have seen another grace--the grace of God--at work.
Are you ever stunned by God's grace to you in another-- by some sudden awareness that startles you awake and recovers your sense of wonder in life? If not, pray God that he will "new life in you awaken" as a hymn writer puts it, stir you life from slumber and the normal; run of things by the grace in a loved one's face or a neighbor's need, or just the forgiveness of your own sin.
Come thou fount of ev'ry blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it, mount of thy redeeming love.
O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wand'ring heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.
(The Covenant Hymnal: A Worshuipbook, No. 68, sts 1,3.)
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