Do you love the everyday ordinary? Does life look like sleep, waking up, routine, set on repeat? Do you walk out of the house each day with the same packed lunch that is an afterthought during your busy day? Do day and night meld together so seamlessly that one never seems to leave the other?
You might be screaming inside right now for an ordinary that is anything but ordinary. What if ordinary is not enough? What if you crave extraordinary right in the middle of your daily routine? Is this even possible or would you rather life continue on in its mundane way?
There are those of you who are reading these words through the perspective of skepticism. Your life is one mishap after another or challenging to the point that your desire is to step into ordinary in your everyday. There is no packed lunch, morning routine or same old, same old. Your secret desire is one day of routine with no surprises woven in between.
What if in the ordinary or the unexpected, we discovered the constancy of God-what life is all about? In our ordinary lives or in the struggles to scrape by, there is an extraordinary gift that is freely given for all. You are given this gift of extraordinary everyday and it is called “GRACE”.
Grace is defined as “the love and mercy given to us by God because God desires us to have it, not because of anything we have done to earn it”. Grace is “generous, free and totally unexpected and undeserved”.  This is extraordinary and it is ours just because of God.
Pause right now and reflect on grace and what it can mean for you and your life this very day. Is this something that you would like and would accept in your own life? Where can grace be found and will you recognize it when you see it?
Grace can be found…
1. Â in the act of surrendering life’s messiness to God and reaching out to Him in deep faith. His word says:
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. Ephesians 2:8 ESV
2.  in the act of encouraging others each day and showing others what grace is all about. One kind word or action is an outpouring of grace into others.
3.  in the dark of night when sleep eludes us and Satan fills our minds with lies. Turn to God. Call His name and grace will enter the dark and turn your night into light.
4.  as a gift you willingly share in the act of forgiveness. As God so freely shares grace with us, we pay it forward through our actions and interactions with those we meet.
As God redeems us daily with His grace, may we all embrace this gift and share it in an act of worship to our Lord.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, Romans 5:1-3
Grace is available each new day whether you live a life of mundane or of challenges. Grace is yours in weakness or in strength. Grace is yours when you don’t think you deserve it.
[Tweet “Come as you are to God’s table and taste the grace of His love.”]
Grace is found in love and is God’s invitation to come as you are to His table. Come sit at His table and taste the grace of His love. God only sees the reflection of His grace as He looks into your eyes.
Accept grace as an extraordinary gift from God. It is enough!
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9
Grace is tucked between the messy and hard as a gift freely given by God. Open your gift today! Embrace it, hold it close and then release it in an act of worship.
Where does grace find you? Will you accept the free gift of grace today?
Blessings,
Mary
Friends~ I am trying on Brave! God is nudging and I am stepping out cautiously right now but still taking that first step. This post is a Brave moment for me. I have submitted this post for a writing contest at My Faith Radio. If you enjoyed this today, would you please be so kind as to vote for Mundanely Skeptical: Where Grace Finds You HERE. Thank you so much. It will require you to create a simple log in but don’t let that stop you! They want to make sure you are real! 🙂
Love hanging out with these friends each week! Stop by for encouragement!
       
       
       
#DanceWithJesus linkup @ susanbmead.com
GIVE ME GRACEÂ @lishaepperson.com
and congratulations with your brave…I voted!
Thank you for taking the time and encouraging my “brave”. In grace!
“Grace is tucked between the messy and hard” Grateful for eyes to see and experience His grace and confidence to know its there whether I feel it or not. Blessings!
Thank you for your sweet encouragement. God loves sneaking grace into our everyday even when we don’t feel it or maybe wonder why He even thinks we deserve it. I appreciate you and your weekly words at Give Me Grace. Have a blessed week!
Mary, your words touch me tonight. I need His grace each moment, but had not thought along those lines of late. It has been like …”oh yes, I received grace back then.” Tonight these words of yours have melted me: “As God redeems us daily with His grace,….” DAILY!!! with…His…grace! I am redeemed daily by the grace that I do not deserve, yet He wants to give it to me every day, every moment of those days.
Pondering these words.
Caring through Christ, ~ linda
PS…I am heading over to vote. I truly needed this and love it too! : )
Amen! I am so glad you stopped by! I also love how God knew you needed these words at the exact time that you were reading them. His timing is perfect! May God bless you on this journey and show you in so many ways that grace is yours always. In grace and peace!
I voted! Good on you for being brave and entering this competition. May it be for His glory.
Surrendering ourselves to God is so important… And not something I’m very good at. But because of GRACE He still loves rebellious, messy me. Praise God.
#DanceWithJesus
Yes because if grace we are fully loved, forgiven and cherished by our FATHER. Surrendering fully is an ongoing process for me but taking one step at a time seems to be the best way. Thank you for being here and for voting. Have a blessed weekend!
Amen. Definitely agree with the “one step at a time” approach. Thank you, you too!
Thank you! May grace meet us in our ordinary and extraordinary challenges and may we be open to embracing it and sharing it with others. Blessings!
Thank you so much! Praising God with you that He loves us always and extends His grace especially in those hard and messy places. Blessings and peace!
Mary,
I voted! Grace. Thank God for His unmerited grace.
Doing a happy dance for you from #DanceWithJesus at SusanBMead.com.
I love happy dances and I love hanging out with you at #DanceWithJesus. May your weekend be full of dancing moments of grace in the unexpected. Blessings!
Mary, beautiful post! I am so grateful His grace shows up in my life every day – in the good, in the messy, in the routine & in the unexpected. 10,000 reasons for my heart to praise Him!
The art of grace is just accepting and embracing it. Each moment contain grace-look for it, find it and then let it free. So thankful you stopped here today and love that God gives us at least 10,000 reasons to praise Him. Happy weekend!
Love this. A lot. Grace is my word for the year, and oh my, how it has done my heart good. It’s funny, because without thinking about the word, really, for all my days – I felt tired, weary, like something was missing. Living and embracing grace has been so freeing. And oh so amazing. <3
I love your testimony to grace. How freeing is it when we embrace and share grace daily. So thankful that you stopped by and shared your encouragement. Blessings in your journey of grace.
Oh Mary! This is just beautiful. I’m grace obsessed right now. I actually had the word tattooed on my wrist last week! I really felt like I needed the constant reminder and I absolutely love it. Reading your words here about the beauty of grace just reiterates my decision :). Thank you, my friend. I just voted for you!!
I forgot to tell you, the Allume schedule is up! I’m so excited. Check it out: http://allume.com/2015-agenda/
I saw the schedule and I am so excited. I can not wait! So glad we are doing this together.
I am also obsessed by grace and amazed daily that God chooses to give this to me in my messy and brokenness. God certainly loves us deeply and without end. May we all feel affirmed everyday that grace is the answer for us and for others who enter our everyday. Love you friend!
Add my vote and love your words to us today, Mary! You’ve helped us to grasp what grace looks like. It’s often so abstract, so I’m glad you’ve put it into terms that are undeniable and understandable. Now we have no excuse for not extending it! Love ya and hope you win!
I am glad that we can actually describe grace in words and in actions. It is real and is a beautiful gift from God but too many times we it seems like something out of our reach. May we all receive this gift of grace and learn how to share it in our own lives. Love and hugs!
Hi Mary – you have my vote! Wish we were permitted to vote more than once.
I love it when you write about God’s grace. Just today (before reading your post) my mind turned to God’s grace and how I long to be present more deeply in His grace and love. I fall short of my personal expectations for showing grace to others. My summer reading list includes a book called ” Grace Happens Here” by Max Lucado. Like most of his books it appears to be an easy but meaningful read.
It was a joy to see you at Claudia’s party. Wish we would have had a chance to talk. There was so much going on and so many conversations, I had a hard time keeping up! Your party is coming up soon and I am excited about attending. Since you will be the star of the show, there will be very little time for us to catch up, so let’s set a date in June to get together for breakfast or lunch to talk, share and pray. I do miss you dear friend!
Love,
Karen
My heart did a happy dance when I saw you here today. I have missed connecting with you and feel confident that we will have that chance in June. I love writing, reading and learning about grace. It is a topic that seems to have limitless possibilities. I don’t feel I will ever know everything there is to know about grace because it is always evolving. Can’t wait to catch up with you! Love you friend!
Mary, I love the idea of it being unexpected, as you said. I blow up, unexpected grace! I mess up, unexpected grace. I fall down, unexpected grace. In seeing how it come out of no deserving and from no understanding, it makes it all from God. Such power. Cheering you on from the #RaRalinkup on Purposefulfaith.com
There is such power in God’s grace and the gift is extraordinary. What I love is that grace is ours in the messy, hard and everyday places of our lives. Thank you for cheering me on and for blessing me with your encouragement. Happy Wednesday! #RaRalinkup
Thank you for the beautiful and encouraging post, Mary. It is an honor to sit in His table. And it is a joy to see so many brave women around me!
Thank you for being one of the brave women around me. Your sweet words blessed me. Let us all sit at God’s table and taste His daily grace. Blessings!
“Grace is that gift tucked between the messy and the hard…” yep, do I ever love this sentence, Mary! So thankful for His grace, and the words you’ve written to remind us 🙂
Hugs, my friend, your post is such a blessing today.
So glad you are here visiting. Grace is everywhere we need it and this includes the messy and the hard. So often we forget that God gave us this gift when He sacrificed His son Jesus for all. It is freely given and we need to receive this gift and then share it with others. Thank you for your sweet words today.
I’m overjoyed to be a grace-receiver and my heart is to be a grace-giver. I think so may forget that they can breath grace in – I did for a long time and now that I realize how immense it is, I’m so very grateful for it. And I don’t want to hoard it – I want others to know it too! Thank you for sharing and encouraging us to pay it forward. Blessed to be visiting from a #tellhisstory.
I love your heart and your willingness to take God’s extraordinary gift to share with others. Grace is such a beautiful gift that is meant to be given and received. I am very thankful for your kind words today. Blessings!
Hi Mary,
Sometimes I think in the US, we expect way too much…I remember a pastor asking a rhetorical question one time: “If grace were all you were given, would that be enough?” When you think about it, the fact that God poured out His grace upon us in the sacrifice of His only Son, that should be more than enough…what more do we need?? Grace is extravagant and extraordinary unto itself. There’s nothing mundane about grace at all. Thanks for this thought provoking reflection…
Blessings,
Bev
I agree “grace should be enough”. It is God’s extraordinary gift to us. We live in a “I want more culture” but wouldn’t it be amazing if we all were satisfied with the gift of Jesus poured out for us by His Father? Thank you so much for stopping by here today. Blessings!
I love that term – “the constancy of God”. You are so spot on whatever life is cannot rock us or bore us if we are living in the constant presence of God. This is so encouraging – thank you #RaRaLinkup
Your sweet words fail my heart today. Thank you Tania! May we go through our days assured that God is ever present and always full of grace. Blessings to you #RaRa sister!
Hi Mary! When I read the opening lines of your post, I thought ‘Yes! I love waking up to coffee and breakfast!’
But I know you are making a bigger point than that. How can I ever get through any day without His grace? It is my ever present help, the gas in my tank, the love in my heart.
Good for you for ‘stepping out’!!! I love it!
#RaRa Linkup,
Ceil
I love my morning coffee too but the story of God’s redeeming grace in our lives is so much more, isn’t it? I know I cannot get through a day without grace and I am thankful that this is God’s daily gift to us. I appreciate your encouragement and the blessing of seeing you here often. May your Wednesday be blessed.
Dear Mary, you wont believe I love your #2 so much.
When we run into people who are down and almost flat and offer them some bit of God’s grace, it is a shiny light that lights up our path too.
The Lord led me to someone who was considering ending it all! Miraculously, she was saved and God is doing wonders right now in her life.
God Bless my Dear Sister.
Your words always bless me! Thank you for being a shining light for me! There is nothing like building someone else up as we move through our day because we never know how much sonnies might need the encouragement. Praise God that He is doing wonders in right in your own life and with those who you meet. Blessings friend!
Love the reminder that daily grace comes in the messy and hard stuff as a gift. I never can quite decide if my days are completely mundane or a wild and crazy ride, but either way I walk in a cloud of grace that covers me! Thank you for your words!
I know I have a mix of the mundane and the crazy but the joy is that grace is in everyday, every moment and is there waiting for us when we make mistakes. I love your image of a cloud of grace that covers us-beautiful! Thank you for stopping by and for your sweet encouragement.
He’s in the grace, the brave, the ordinary, the extraordinary. He’s in the air I breathe. I’m so grateful that He never leaves, no matter what the rest of life looks like.
Where would we be with out Him?
Amen! God’s grace restores, renews and is a gift to receive as well as share. I would be nothing without God and His loving grace that He freely choses to give to me in all my messy, hard and ordinary. May we all feel God’s extraordinary gift of grace today. Hugs friend!
Oh, I’m sitting at the table today to partake of His grace today, Mary. Your words infuse a bit of life into my weary Tuesday. (Kids kept me up last night, and they’re not even babies anymore! 🙂 ) You also reminded me that I need to pay it forward by extending grace to someone today.
I understand how even grown kids can keep us awake. I believe that I have had longer nights with them than when they were babies! I’m so glad that God’s words on this page gave you a reason to forget your weary for a few minutes. May we all pause in our weariness and find renewal in God and His word. Blessings friend!