At the Right Time . . . Extravagant Grace {Day 29}

For many years I have kept myself a prisoner in my own home. Well, at least, in my home making. I felt that how well I kept, or had not kept, my house was a reflection on who I am. I felt slightly embarrassed when anyone showed up and my house was not tidy and in order.

I have always acknowledged that when I have a clean and tidy house I ‘feel’ better emotionally. I fail to keep a perfect cleaning schedule and we ‘live’ in our house and so it seems my house is often a chaotic mess.

Toys . . . clothes . . . dolls . .  train tracks . . . books . . . pens and art supplies . . . hair elastics . . . shoes . . . dishes . . . blankets and pillows . . . beads . . . paper . . .  food just made . . .  food half eaten . . . food smeared on windows . . . sticky hand prints . . .  dust . . . piano music . . .  board games and whatever else strewn about making mazes all throughout the house. All not in their ‘home’. No wonder I am such a mess.

But does a clean home really identify who I am?

Yes, I want order and cleanliness, and a warm comforting place to call home for my family, but why do I let it control how I feel, or even worse who I am? Or how I want others to perceive who I am?

Is my desire for a clean and tidy house killing the warm and loving environment my children crave more anyway?

When I am barking for them to pick up the house are they really hearing their Mama telling them to stop enjoying the moments they have created in their play?



I leave off with these unanswered questions. I really don’t know what the answer is. I think it has something to do with balance. But, I walk away from the screen without any concrete answers and I go back to washing the dishes.



That night I get an email from a friend saying they are driving by and would like to stop in.
Just over twenty-four hours after I had vented my struggle above she drops in with her family. She has come to tell me something that has been on her heart for months.

We are finishing our tea, sitting up at the island in the kitchen. Her hands are folded together with resolve. She tells me she and her husband have done something and I am just going to have to accept it. She knows she is talking to one stubborn girl who is full of pride!

I have no idea what she is about to tell me.

She lets her burden roll off her heart; a burden she has been praying about for months. Praying for God to prepare my heart to receive what she is burdened to do and praying for the right time.

She tells me that they are hiring a house-cleaner for me . . . for a year.

And they are not going to take ‘No’ for an answer!

I collapse into tears and can only murmur ‘thank you’.

If she had come a week earlier I know I would have said ‘No . . . No way! You can‘t do that!’

We sit and talk and I share my fears about open heart surgery and what if I am going to have to go through that or my fears about what if they can’t fix my heart . . . then what.

And she knows. She knows how I think and feel but she is doing this regardless of the circumstances in my life. She is doing this unconditionally because she cares.

She walks through the fears with me. She tells me I am not alone.

And I know it. She wraps her arms around me. She has extravagantly demonstrated God’s love and provision and I am overwhelmed with His love that he has lavished on me again and again.

I have been abundantly blessed with family and friends and neighbours arriving on the hard days and coming to help with keeping the house and kids and meals.

And even now through another one of his daughters who is so excited to give this extravagant gift to me!

I am humbled. I don’t even know how to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’; just ‘thank you’.

I shiver with an overwhelming sense of His presence, His peace and joy, the whole rest of the day.

Isn’t that what He desires. For us to be in a place to see His extravagant grace – His gifts and be so humbled by them that we can only say ‘thank you’ and we know His presence and His peace and His joy.

I don’t deserve to have such a friend who gives of herself so extravagantly.

I don’t deserve to have such a God who gives of Himself so extravagantly.

And I can only say, “Thank you”.






{I have been counting His gifts for this year; scratching them down in a gratitude journal, but for today  I share here 3 gifts on time}

962. that God makes all things beautiful in His time

963. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

964. an amazing friend waiting on God for the right time to bless me in a practical, beautifully extravagant way

This is part of a series, linking up with Nester, for the month of October.

You will find the rest of the series, Write to Discover Yourself: My Story His Glory, here. 

It is a series of posts of sharing what I am learning in Ruth Vaughn’s book, 'Write to Discover Yourself'.