Saturday Morning Grace

   

     It's sitting alone in the crowded coffee shop, nursing a latte and taking in the hum of conversations all around me. It's being able to stare out the window past the birdcage lantern and take as long as I want to finish my crêpe. It is walking through Pepper Place and marveling at the actual non-cafeteria food that I had forgotten still exists. It's mason jars of sweet tea and buckets of fresh vegetables. It's the way the older gentleman smiles at me and thanks me for my business and the way the apples and fresh flowers smell as he places them in my bag. It's the way people here smile at each other -genuinely smile- and strike up conversations with strangers.
         
     And somewhere amidst the flannel and the tea lights, the worn pairs of boots and the bright white tents, it is Peace. Community. Restoration.

     So often I feel like I pray for these very things -beg for them even- and then sit back disappointed as some great wave of supernatural calm doesn't immediately wash over me. I wonder at the fact that it feels like God must not have heard me, and then the firm knowledge that he did -that I know for a fact that he always does- makes me feel even worse. I look at the week that I've had, the problems I'm facing, or the items left on my ever-growing to-do list and wonder just how much more I have to do to merit a break, what more I need to bring onto my plate before he decides I am deserving of some help. Lost in the distorted scope of my own issues, my fatigue turns to frustration, and I sit like an upset toddler, arms crossed, miffed at the perceived lack of attention.

    And then I have moments like these. Moments of small blessings and brief escapes. Moments that remind me that perhaps God does not only work within great supernatural movements, but in the small practicalities of my day-to-day.
   
     In my fatigue, stress, or determination to feel sorry for myself, I forget to notice and appreciate many of the little moments throughout my day and as a result, miss out on so many of the ways my Father tries to bless me. It is almost as if in looking ahead so intently for the peace that I've asked for, I fail to notice the opportunities for rest and renewal that had already been placed in my life -before I even knew I would need them. It is yet another way that Grace continues to amaze me. The way that I am so well taken care of time and time again even by someone who knows just how often I fail to notice and who continues to pour out his love despite my attitudes, inabilities, and impatience.  
   
      So this morning I am thankful for unique and undeserved moments of grace. That the same God who moves through pillars of fire and great miraculous signs also reaches out through coffee shop window seats and conversations over baskets of tomatoes, and that the God of earthquakes and galaxies and mountain ranges is also a God of fall harvests and Nutella breakfast pastries and a thousand quiet moments. And most of all, that I come across so many more such moments of immense grace and peace and restoration than I can ever recognize enough to be thankful for.