Everything Is By Grace

Author: siggy

Everything is by grace.  Today is a good day to count my blessings.  I am not in dialysis.  My kidney function has stabilized (the last three years).  It is not good but it is livable.  My wife loves me.  And my two sisters and my brother-in-law (and a friend) sent me birthday cards (and one check).  There is so much to be grateful of–two well running cars and a roof over my shoulders.  There is no pressing financial needs.  And I am surrounded by animals I love (in fact, there are eleven in this house).  I love watching the birds out my window.  And now I am waiting for the first hummingbird to find the nectar I just put out.  My life is not perfect but it is good.  I am aware God does not owe anything.  Everything is by grace.  And He owns everything.

There are too many things in this house.  And it has me depressed.  There are too many piles in different corners.  It is just too hard going through this stuff.  I see a stack of canceled checks on the desk.  Your father has been dead twenty years.  Why are they not in the trash?  We can’t even throw away broken down electronics.  That video/dvd player does work any more.  Why is it sitting on those records?  I even tried it again.  I already told my other it no longer works.  None of the lights on it worked.  I just want to pitch it.  It is preventing me from going through the pile of LP’s it is laying on.  Why are we keeping those two stacks of “Architectural Digest”.  When is the last time you looked at an issue.  I have to run everything by you.  You have to make a decision on everything.  All of this has me depressed.  Why don’t you let me have control of the decisions on most things.  And when I complain of too many things still in the house, you tell me of all the things you have given away and pitched.  There may be a lot of truth to that.  There is still too many things in this house.  And I don’t want to work so hard in eliminating them.  There are still too many piles, boxes and books and LP’s everywhere.

I used to keep my potatoes in the garage but last time some critter helped themselves to a few potatoes, gnawing all around several.  My wife immediately threw these in the trash.  Fortunately he left a few alone.

I used to keep bird seed in the garage, too, but I had the same problem.  Some animal probably a mouse took a liking to it, scattering the shells of the sunflower seeds, creating a real mess on the floor.

My cobs of corn which I put out for the squirrels hoping they would eat less birdseed were not safe there either.  There would be neat even rows of corn kernels gone.  This creature was winning.

I decided to keep my potatoes in the closet in the house hoping no creature could get at them there.  I will see.  I was running out of hiding places.  I was fighting a battle with an invisible enemy.  And I was losing.

It is so easy to take even the simplest things for granted.  I took a shower this morning and I had to remind myself this was something I should be grateful for.  For fifteen years not that long ago the house I lived in did not have a shower just a bath tub.  That was the big thing when we traveled — the motel always had a shower.  I forgot about that and silently thanked God for my shower.  It is so easy to take even the smallest freedoms for granted–like being able to take a shower in your house.