When my Selah Book Awards arrived with the mail last week, all I could do was shout, “Hallelujah, Lord, thank You for Your grace!”
And then, as I held them in my hands, I remembered just a few short years ago when I thought my author days were over. In fact, I was sure of it.
In the early post-Covid years, which were full of painful losses for my family, my long-time publisher of the Too Blessed to be Stressed series (more than 40 book products had been published under that brand over 15 years) decided to go a different direction, even though the series had sold nearly 2.5 million copies, and the bestseller, Too Blessed to be Stressed: 3-Minute Devotions for Women, was still selling in multiple languages like buttered hotcakes smothered in Aunt Jemimah.
Go figure. I didn’t understand why (which is true for how a lot of things in Publishing World work), but I was suddenly a bestselling author and simultaneously yesterday’s boring has-been.
I felt utterly lost. Gone were (among other things not necessary to mention in making my point) key physical abilities (both my knees were painfully decrepit and needed total replacements), emotional stability (our family lost five loved ones in a short span of time), spiritual direction (which Papa God later graciously restored), my lifelong avocations/hobbies (I could no longer enjoy tennis, hiking, or even standing up), and now I was losing my sole vocation too – writing and speaking for God’s glory.
So I did the only think I knew to do (besides cry a lot). I prayed. And prayed. And prayed some more. What was God’s will for me now? I just didn’t feel ready to be turned out to pasture; I still had more to say to other women like me who struggle in their faith journeys. But it seemed no one wanted to hear it.
Then after a year of learning and growing and squirming in God’s waiting room, I got a call out of the blue from another publisher who said he loved my Too Blessed to be Stressed series and wondered if I’d write a brand new devo for him. So I did. It took a year and a half but felt like forever. After I finished, I couldn’t find him. He ghosted me (found out later he was out of the country and inadvertently missed all my communication attempts). So my agent put my manuscript on the literary auction block, despite my assurance that nobody would be interested, and lo and behold, that’s where Papa God’s grace kicked in.
We ended up in a bidding war between publishers. Somebody really did want to hear it. Grace.
Then, the new publisher wanted rewrites over Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. I spent the holy-days holed up alone in my writing cave pecking computer keys. I wiped tears off my keyboard, totally wanting to quit, but somehow finding Papa God’s strength to keep going. Grace.
Finally, about three years after it was begun on angel wings and a prayer, Bless Your Heart was released. Grace again.
Eight months after that, it was named Book of the Year. Now that’s nothing but pure grace.
Last week I blogged about unhappy endings and how we, as Christ-followers, deal with them (scroll back if you need to. Go ahead – I’ll wait). But today I wanted to write about the opposite happenstance … when the outcome of a problem is so incredibly good, you know it’s what I call a grace note. A supernatural touch of grace just because our Creator loves us so.
Leaves us feeling all warm and fuzzy.
Kinda like my dog Laz must feel when he comes in from the backyard and hasn’t done a productive thing. He knows he only gets a treat when he piddles or poops in the great outdoor latrine, but when he doesn’t, he begs for a faux mini-burger anyway. And sometimes … sometimes, because I love the snot out of the little furball, I give him one. Even if he doesn’t deserve it. Out of sheer grace.
Grace. Don’t you just adore that incredible undeserved miracle of blessing from the loving hand of Papa God?
Grace doesn’t really make sense, not in a human perspective anyway. It’s impractical, undeserved, and usually pricey. Somebody has to pay for it, but we often take it for granted because that someone is not us. It’s the One who paid for the right to extend grace with His own blood.
Sometimes we lose sight of the magnitude of this amazing blessing and need to be reminded what grace is … this is the best definition of grace I’ve ever encountered, lifted from some long-ago sermon and scribbled in the margins of my Bible:
- Justice is giving you what you deserve.
- Mercy is NOT giving you what you deserve.
- Grace is giving you what you DON’T deserve.
- For example, you steal a horse. You’re sentence to hang (justice). If the owner offers mercy, you go home free. If he extends grace, you take the horse with you.
I’m a remedial grace learner. I must be slapped upside the head with the same lesson of Papa God’s grace over and over for it to sink in. I often feel as if I’ve used up my quota of grace … there couldn’t possibly be any more grace in my account. And then I’m reminded of one of my favorite Bible verses:
“For of His fulness we have all received, and grace upon grace,” (John 1:16 NASB).
Grace upon grace. Like waves overtaking each other as they wash up on a beach, Papa God, from his fulness (read: abundance) happily sends wave after wave of grace our way in inexhaustible supply. The ocean feeding the waves is vast and immeasurable so the waves don’t ever cease. They just keep coming in one after the other. Wave after wave. Grace upon grace. Usually when our own efforts fall short in epic failure and our backs are up against the wall.
And all he requires from us in return is our trust.
Why, oh why, is trust so difficult to give? Even while I’m still soaked from the last wave, as the riptide pulls me out, I’m shocked when yet another wave rolls in.
I constantly struggle with feelings of unworthiness at receiving so many grace waves. And then I turn around when trouble strikes and beg for more. Is it just me or do you do this too, my friend?
It’s a wonder to me that Papa God doesn’t heave a bolt of lightning my way but He hasn’t yet. Thankfully, His patience is just as limitless as His grace.
Won’t you share with us, dearest BFF (Blessed Friend Forever), an instance when Papa God showed his limitless grace to you?
P.S. I’m currently booking special events for the fall, winter, and spring. If you know of a church, civic, or athletic group looking for an inspirational event speaker, please feel free to pass on my name and/or send them to my website speaker pages at www.DeboraCoty.com before my calendar fills up. Many thanks – recommendations from my BFFs are the very best!!!