This week’s Five Minute Friday prompt is on the word gift.
I must say this is the least pre-calculated FMF I’ve ever written. I hope it makes sense, ya’ll… 😉
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Gift
Start:
I’ve always heard that old adage, “it’s the gift that keeps on giving.”
Yes, but what does that really mean?
The free yearly gym membership? The laundry detergent discount that allowed me to stock up for 15 months? That cooking class that taught me enough to keep my husband alive in the first few years of our marriage?
All great gifts…and all that truly do keep on giving.
Yet I think there is something more. A gift I enjoy unwrapping each and every morning as I climb out of bed and remember that there is such a thing as salvation and unconditional love…and the grace that comes with it all.
I think of that verse from Lamentations 3 – the one that I won’t look up because I’m truly dedicating every last minute of this five minutes to letting the words fly – but you know it: “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed. His mercies never fail. They are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness.”
He gifts me His faithfulness. He gifts me compassion. He gifts me with showers of love. He gifts me a basket full of new mercies each and everyday.
He gifts me grace.
Yes, grace is a gift. So perfectly wrapped… It’s that one under the tree that you keep shaking – ecstatic with anticipation. It just sounds like happiness in a box.
Surely you know what I mean?
As a young girl I could always tell the difference between the sound of socks from a box of Legos and I’ll leave it to your imagination as to which one made me giddy.
For me, grace is that box of Legos. The gift I probably never really deserved because I was quite ornery that year. The gift that I spent weeks waiting for, yet unwrapped so slowly and with such care because I just didn’t want that feeling to end.
Grace is that good and perfect gift.
…and we all know where those come from, don’t we?
Stop.
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Won’t you join me this week for Five Minute Friday over at Kate Motaung’s page? We’d love to see you there! Just familiarize yourself with this page first, no editing, and set your watch for five minutes.
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Photo Credit: elanejamessalon.com
Love the Legos… ; ) What a sweet way to put it. God bless.
Grace is indeed a gift! “For it is not your own doing but a gift of God.”
I talked about His beautiful gift of grace last night as we wrapped up a nine week class at our church and as always, I had to hold back a few tears. Beautiful post, Jennifer. xoxo
Well, for an unscripted run, you did good!
In thinking about this, for me, the gift that keeps on giving is Duty.
Duty says it doesn’t matter what you feel, it doesn’t matter what you think…there is something that compels your engagement, and it’s beyond you, and bigger than you.
Duty lifts us into community, and without community, we are nothing. For wherever two or more of you are gathered in My name…
Amen! Grace comes down from the Father of lights. My goal is to let the light shine through me, reflect off me and gift others with kind words and graceful acts. It was nice chatting with you last night at the twitter party :). I hope you’re having a beautiful summer so far!
great writing. Good word prompt.
Thank you, Sharon!
Oh I love this… and the good great news is that His Grace just keeps on giving! Love you so!
this is a beautiful post about the greatest gift of all, grace. I’m so undeserving and yet, like you said, I roll out of bed each day to a new day of grace. Blessings to you, Jennifer!
Grace as legos, legos as grace… Has me thinking. Grace makes noise. We think of it as silent, almost stealthy, but it’s like a loud trumpet blast. It’s a box we can shake and the contents make noise. It’s this hugely radical thing. I don’t think I’ve ever looked at this way and it will stick with me.