grace.

we (pam, kara, jeff, and i) sat down with a pretty neat guy today and he just started telling us about how out the of 13 books paul wrote in the new testament, 12 of them conclude by mentioning the word, "grace." i had no idea. and so like any other kid, i started listening.

seriously. so, come to find almost half of the new testament ends talking of grace. my math skills are legit. look it up.

1 and 2 corinthians. galatians. ephesians. philippians. colossians. 1 and 2 thessalonians. 1 and 2 timothy. titus. philemon. and even hebrews (some attribute this book to paul as well). so that could be 13...IN A ROW. and paul's 1st book, romans, starts with grace.

okay, while pretending to be a journalism major all through college i did learn a couple things. and one of those things is that when writing a conclusion, you bring the thunder. you end well. you get your main point across. you sum it up. and most times, the shorter the better. the shorter, the more powerful. if you end well, then you've made your point and you don't have to repeat it. well, i'd say paul ends well. over and over. you see, he was continually writing to different places and wanted each of them to know the great conclusion. it's something to think about. he ends well. time and time again. to so many different people.

grace.

what's he trying to tell us?
tell you? think about it.
for me, it changes things.

for starters, it changes my talk with the kiddos tonight. i love it when God changes my direction to His. well...i take that back. most times i love it. sometimes my heart wants my way really bad. really bad.

(enter smooth transition here)

secret song for tonight is "sing it out." switchfoot.

"Sometimes I lose the plot. I feel like I’m hopelessly lost underwater, as though I can’t figure out which way is up. I know that there’s a song somewhere inside of me but I just can’t remember what it is. I want my life to be the poetry of the Poet himself, I want to sing- to be a melody intertwined with The Melody Himself. But sometimes I’m hopelessly lost, broken, spent. I fall in love with the ones and things that take life and love away from me. I need The Song Himself to sing through me. I need The Word Himself to speak into me...The song is singing about itself- struggling for melody, for life, for meaning. Singing about rebirth, the song spends most of its time in the grave and comes to a bright glorious finish, held out until the very end. To match the lyric we saved almost every instrument for the end of the song. In my opinion, the essence of the song was the only thing that survived on the record." - jon foreman about the meaning of the song.

good stuff. gobs of grace in there. in that word is the power to win. our own struggles. our families. or communities. and the nations.

g