Grace I've freely received, grace I will freely give.

Sometimes you need to be reminded of things that have happened in your life so you don’t forget where you’ve come from. How you’ve gotten to where you are today. And, in my case, why I’m still alive.

Now and then people will come along in my life, or situations will take place, and I find myself sharing my story. What has happened to make me who I am today. Where I’ve come from. What I’ve struggled with and how, by God’s miraculous grace, I am still here.

And people who hear my story will thank me for sharing. Some who know it have told me, and then reminded me again, how what I’ve gone through is a powerful thing, and it will impact people for good. Which is a wonderful thing to hear.

But I, as everyone else who lives and breathes and exists, sometimes struggle with doubt. What makes my story so great? Why do people keep telling me that my story is a powerful one? What makes is that way? How do they know? It’s just me. My past, my struggles, my redemption. There’s nothing special about it.

I have to remind myself, though, that by the telling of what God has done in my life, it will influence people for the better. How? I have no idea. But simply by sharing the dark times that I’ve experienced, and then showing how the Light shattered the darkness, it can make a difference. It’s not that my story is a unique one, but there’s redemption. There’s grace. There’s hope. There’s life after the darkest moments.

It’s not something I share a lot, and definitely not something I tell everyone I meet. But every time I go through the details of when this happened, and then that happened, by the time I’m at the end, I have to step back. I look at my life and what it was, and I am reminded that God’s grace saved me. Because I know – I know – that I wouldn’t be alive right now without it. I wouldn’t be who I am without it. Without Him.

And it is just something that keeps me in awe. I find myself lacking in words; my heart overwhelmed with…with thankfulness. And I am drawn to tears. Because I see the grace of God in my life. I know it’s there. I know it’s in my life now. And it is not something that I ever want to take for granted. Ever.

So it’s good for me, to tell my story. Perhaps it may be a blessing to others, but I think it is a blessing even more so to myself. I need to remember, to never forget, His grace. And even more, I need to take the grace that I’ve been given, and extend it to others – to an even fuller amount than what I’ve received.


“But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”   Acts 20.24