Grace Like Rain . . . Just Let it Come

If I have a daughter I would love to name her “Grace.” This word brings a beautiful and refreshing picture to my soul! One of an unexpected, beautiful gift of something absolutely delightful. And this gift being undeserved and taken by surprise! It is a place devoid of judgment and guilt. It is a place of rest. Grace is my favorite word!

My second favorite word is “water.” It’s the strangest thing, but that word sets my soul to rest. Just the idea of water makes me feel at peace. I could stand on a peer over the ocean and be content for hours without talking, just watching the waves roll under me. Or, I could sit for an afternoon by a lake and just look at the slight swells caused by wind brushing along the top of the water, the edges rolling in along the sand or dirt, slightly in, slightly back. When I used to run cross country, a rainy day was the day that I tied up my shoes and ran out the door, just to feel the coolness run down my face. Showers, rain, swimming relaxes me . . . even chores having to do with water: washing dishes or laundry by hand, washing my car or the bath tub! Drinking it. Hehe!!  I just like water. It refreshes me. It makes me feel clean.

Grace Like Rain

A musician and worship-leader that I really appreciate, Todd Agnew, wrote a song entitled “Grace Like Rain.” In it, Agnew uses John Newton’s lyrics from Amazing Grace to inspire listeners to hear the words of the old hymn with new ears. But when he sings “grace like rain falls down on me,” I feel cool water fall on my face and run down, as it cleans me of all the things I wish I were not.

Grace

There is nothing that paralyzes me more than guilt. Nothing more that I wish I could be free from than judgment for the imperfections and ugliness I stain the world with every day . . . and then comes mercy, then comes forgiveness. And I am free!

But then Grace comes even above and beyond. Wait, it says, more . . . there is more to come.

And gifts of sunshine, and kind people with a smile, and tomatoes and strawberries from the garden, and a pink flower randomly growing next to my favorite tree in the park, and shade, and acceptance and encouragement when I am not perfect, come and surprise me and remind me that grace is real . . . there is something beautiful and free and given and sweet.

Harsh, cold condemnation, defensiveness, and self-deprivation scream their words of “right” and “should” . . . and I do obey BECAUSE I love Jesus, but not to prove MY righteousness.  Because the truth is that I have no righteousness on my own, and that’s OKAY! There is forgiveness. And beyond that, there is grace.

And I let every part of me be touched by that grace that rains down on me . . . and its living water transforms me! It softens me, cleans me, refreshes me, cools me.

“Those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ” – Romans 5:17b.