Monday, November 28, 2011

Grace's New Look

Grace – the freely given, unmerited favour and love of God.
From Dictionary.com
Today, the message was about the grace of God. The Pastor talked about our separation from God and how because of His grace, the Lord saved us from ourselves. We became His transformed beings with new hearts and new minds. I agree with him. The Lord is very much into redeeming people and then transforming them. I, for one, changed a LOT because of His work in my life. Praise God!

In previous postings, I’ve indicated that without the Lord’s grace, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Each day that we are still alive is purely because of the Lord’s grace.


This week-end surprised me though because both Evan and Eric were home. The Americans had their Thanksgiving holiday so Evan had the long week-end off. Eric knew Evan would be home and he wanted to attend his cousin’s 18th birthday gathering so he came home also. It was a joy to have both of them here. As Ethan declared, it is good to be together as a family again. What struck me as especially unusual was the way we spent our time and why I recognized it later on as grace.

It all seemed so ordinary. One son wanted to watch “The Muppets” so he was making plans to go see it. Another son wanted to go as well so soon, all of them wanted to go, including the youngest one. I told Ethan I’d take him. Eng was away at a conference so I took our four sons out to catch the late show. Before we got there, one son kept joyfully proclaiming that he was so excited to watch the movie. It wasn’t Ethan so I was particularly amused. I was a girl when I last watched some of the Muppets on “Sesame Street”. It surprised me that my grown up sons would want to watch it. It puzzled me even more why one would be so “excited” to see it. I didn’t know that the lead actor was in a popular series. Still, by now, I’d grown accustomed to hearing them want to watch movies like, “Thor”, “Captain America”, or a movie filled with action, suspense, violence, and sometimes zombies (now why they’d want to watch supposedly dead people move - scary and ugly, too(!) - is really beyond me).


While watching, there were several moments in the movie when we all heartily laughed! It was a movie that the “kid” in all of us related with. I watched Kermit the frog and Miss Piggy as a kid and so did the older ones. Ethan hardly watched TV in Thailand but he knew the characters. It was wholesome FUN all around. When the “Rainbow Connection” song was sung, it was familiar to all of us. We sang along with it in our heads. When the movie was over, we talked about the different funny parts and laughed all over again. We sang some of the new catchy songs together even the day after. It was surprisingly fun! I went along more as a driver but ended up enjoying myself tremendously.

The next day, one son had to cook for us as part of his school project so he fixed our supper. He had us eating green salad, pasta with Alfredo sauce, and baked pork chops. It was delicious! Later they wanted milk shakes so they headed out to the corner store while the cook and I cleaned up and washed dishes. The milk shake machine was unfortunately broken but they kept their happy mood, content with their second choice: slushy drinks.

The evening ended with a game of Scrabble. While playing, we listened to the same movie’s soundtrack and sang along. Some unkind words were even spoken but nothing escalated into a fight. All in all, we enjoyed ourselves. It was while playing that one of them said, “I’m really glad you guys are here.” When I heard that, I realized that it wasn’t an ordinary week-end. The phrase spoken, was used for the first time by that teen. It sounds more like something Papa God would tell us. Also, we were living in harmony just as the Lord said (mentioned in the July 17, 2011 posting “New Provisions”). Last but not the least, it is grace to truly enjoy being together. I know that to have fun, not all families would watch a movie like “The Muppets” and be tickled by it. For drinks, neither would very many choose milk shakes nor slushy drinks. We have an unusual family but I love it. Thank you, Lord, for Your grace. None of us deserves it. You are good to let it happen. Next time, please let Eng be with us also. =)

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