grace drips, drips, drips

I make the largest strides forward in life not when I am the most comfortable, but when I am the most alive.
- JEFF GOINS

it wrecks me. i can’t explain it. but i feel it.

i finish and i feel helpless. exposed. unguarded. i helped a little and a little is good. it’s more than nothing.

but the need is heavier. i see it, i hear it, i touch it.
i know it.

and i feel it.
compassion slays pride. it squeezes out, Lord please? we need. they need. now. here. amen.

and His reply? rarely in the bulk I request.

i don’t behold buckets of financial healing pouring on the poor
or physical healing on the injured
or mental healing on the disturbed
or chemical healing on the addicted
or emotional healing on the wounded.

not that He can’t. or won’t. or doesn’t. or hasn’t.

but i rarely spot full-blown miracles.

what i catch are sprinkles.
drops of grace.
one by one. 

drip, drip, drip.

sometimes they make a mess.
sometimes they seem too few.
sometimes they fall unnoticed.

but the drizzle keeps falling.
again.
again.
again.

they’re ripe to bursting.
in faith. in hope. in love.

and where they splash, the hungry sponge them up and thirst for more.
more grace. more Him, if understood.

and the wrecked? we walk away splattered with sprays of grace as we pray for buckets.

but the drops never stop and wet we return, open mouths aimed heavenward for a refilling.

to do justly. to love mercy. to walk humbly with our God (micah 6:8).

even if it wrecks us.
it’s real. it's right. it's redeeming.
it’s alive.

and i feel it.

* * *

this is often how i feel when i walk away from a night at manna house, a food and clothing distribution center for the poor and homeless near my town. wrecked. yet eager to come back quicker and share more fully the next time than i did the last time. Lord, continue raining grace.