Sunrise to Sunset

Sometimes, O God, the only way I know Your light is in the dark.
When the difficulty creeps and sneaks along the edges of life,
When the only thing that keeps the night at bay is You.

Continue to move in my life, O God, as this first month of 2020 winds down.
Continue to guide me, trusting that in order for grace to be grace, Your presence is not earned by...
Good behavior or
Perfect attendance pins from Sunday School or
Being nice to someone at the store and letting him go in front of me (although clearly he has twenty items in the express lane because his fifteen containers of yogurt don't count as 1!)
Grace comes like the night.
Grace sometimes comes in the night.
Unexpected.
Unseen until it is right there as close as my next breath.
Unknown until I find a peace that strangely warms my heart.

Who would have thought that the night could evoke or awoken such a thought?
Who could have believed that the setting sun was not the end of the day, but a beginning of a new way?
Who would have guess that Your most creative moments come not when the lights are on and laughter is easy, but in those shadow/valley moments?

Not me.

Faith handed to me seemed to sound like a mathematical equation.
Good deeds plus giving the church money equals God's grace.
Only, that is not the way it works.
We cannot buy our way into Your realm.
We cannot pave the path with our good intentions ~ at least not arriving at Your door ~ or so goes the cliche.

Continue to visit me in the night and continue to come into my life when the sun has set.

Hear my prayer, O God, it comes from my heart and is for my whole life to be drenched with traces of Your grace.

Amen.