Grace …the perfect fit

I smiled this morning as I saw the edge of the label sticking out from under a book on my coffee table. I pulled it out, already knowing what it said: ‘Grace, a perfect fit’. This was a label on lovely black blouse I’d bought in some store or the other, can’t recall where cos I’m not into stores, labels or brands. I remember though that God used this label to minister to me early in the year, and that why I didn’t throw it in the trash. It was on the 2^nd of January. I hadn’t come into the New Year in a ‘good place’ as we say, and I had taken some time out that morning to again press in and allow God to infill me afresh as my Encourager, Comforter and Helper. The year prior had ended rather heavily, and this one was again starting out with its own new sets of weights. Truth be told, my outward appearance of calm belied many an emotion that I was dealing with based on several business and family-related challenges. I don’t know about you sis, but I prefer to fight new battles. It can be tough to see old demons you thought you’d slain resurrect, and to have to again fight battles you thought you’d had victories in previously. To have to deal with those in addition to new battles? It was an intense period for me, sis. Intense!

But what do you do? You put on a bold face, mindful that the family is counting on you to set the tone for the holidays and festivities, right? You know that saying, ‘ain’t nobody happy if mama ain’t happy?’  The thing with having older children though is that they can see through your charade, lol. They might not know the specifics of whatever is going on with you, but they see and they know …..and thankfully in my case, they didn’t ask too many questions but rather chose to seriously love on me in that period, which made it oh so much easier to deal with.

This morning of the 2^nd though, I was just drained and as I went into my prayer closet, I had no specific words. I simply bawled before the Lord. Yes, it was a real ‘groanings that can’t be uttered’ situation, sis. I cried, prayed in tongues, cried some more, and then managed an odd almost-comical-if-it-weren’t-so-serious combination of both. When I was done (and I could literally sense God asking me, ‘You done?’), I sat quietly and waited to hear what the Lord would say. I had no plan to move unless He spoke. He was silent for a quite a while, or so I thought initially. I finally realized though that while my mouth had stopped moving, He was waiting on me to be truly quiet in my spirit. Eventually, I heard Him. The first thing He said was “1^st Corinthians 16 verse 9”. I looked it up: “For a wide door of opportunity for effectual [service] has opened to me [there, a great and promising one], and [there are] many adversaries”. It so made sense, sis!

Honestly, it made so much sense that I literally burst into laughter. Adversaries? Many adversaries? Oh yes, I had certainly seen that. I had seen them in the physical and clearly, they were also working in the spiritual realm. I laughed because I realized that all the noise was because of the ‘wide door of opportunity’ …the ‘opportunity for effectual service’ that has been opened up to me. The Amplified version of the Bible qualifies this door of opportunity as being ‘great and promising’ meaning that there is a mountain of glory that God will get by my walking in through that door and faithfully deploying on the assignments of service that He would have me do for Him. No wonder the forces of darkness had been battling against me! I could see it clearly, sis. I could! I mean, to be fair…it’s not that I didn’t know, but sometimes there is a clarity with which the Lord uses His word to redefine certain things for you that leads to a greater ‘aha’ than your general ‘knowing’ of a thing.

I laughed, sis. I laughed from my core, and then I burst into songs of praise. Nothing had fundamentally changed in the physical, but I knew without a doubt that many things had shifted in the heavenly realm. My focus shifted from the attacks and the adversaries, to the victory and the opportunity ahead. And again the Lord spoke a word to me, another simple word. He said: ‘CAPACITY’…Halleluyah! That is another message, sis. I will deal with that in my next post, sharing with you the things He then began to speak to me regarding that word. I sang songs of praise and prayed prayers of thanksgiving with an assurance that no matter how the storms may rage, the voice of my God is louder than the noise of many waters. I felt the release, sis. I did!

I then prayed for grace, sis. I asked for grace not to forget the reason for the challenges. I prayed for grace to see the door of opportunity, not to miss it, not to allow anything becloud my vision. I prayed for courage to walk through it, and I prayed for the strength to obey promptly in the course of the assignment waiting for me at the other side of the door. As I stood to leave my prayer closet, the blouse I spoke about earlier caught my eye for some reason. I really am not one to ‘save’ new things to wear them at some future time so quite frankly, I took it that it caught my eye because that was exactly what I should wear that day. I immediately yanked off the label (one of my ways of ensuring I don’t change my mind) and  as I made to throw it away, the words on it caught my eye in greater detail. And yes sis, the label was “GRACE...the perfect fit”. Very odd for a clothing label don’t you think? Or perhaps not odd at all! As I stood there, the Holy Spirit began to speak to me about grace and this is what I want to leave you with.

Sis, no matter how the storms of life buffet you, and we will all face storms at various times and seasons….there is grace available for you, sis. There is grace available for me. The Holy Spirit said to me that as long as we remain connected to God, as long as we recognize and go to battle in His strength and not our own, as long as we remember to lift Him above our struggles, as long as we don’t try to find the solutions for Him, as long as we look and spend time in His word, as long as we remain committed to give Him glory for the victory… grace will be and is available sis. And this grace is available in the EXACT measure which we require in every instance! I don’t know about you, but that is such a comforting and uplifting reality, sis.

Maybe you are in a seamless season at this point in your life. Let me assure you that this is only because there is a perfect-fit-grace that is carrying you and constraining every difficulty that could otherwise arise. Give God the praise, sis. If you have no significant worries currently, it is not of your own making. It is grace and mercy saying ‘No’. But if like me you are in a ‘going though’ season, let me assure you again also, the you are still standing because of the same perfect-fit-grace. I pray that you and I never lose our confidence in this reality, sis. By the power of God, I pray we will allow His Word, His sufficiency, His perfect-fit-grace to wash over us now and every day of our lives…that we might truly live and walk the overcoming life that He desires us to live. The Lord will help you sis. He will help me.

Be blessed…..for you surely are!