Grace …the perfect fit

I smiled this morning as I saw the edge of the label sticking out
from under a book on my coffee table. I pulled it out, already knowing what it
said: ‘Grace, a perfect fit’. This
was a label on lovely black blouse I’d bought in some store or the other, can’t
recall where cos I’m not into stores, labels or brands. I remember though that
God used this label to minister to me early in the year, and that why I didn’t
throw it in the trash. It was on the 2^nd of January. I hadn’t come into
the New Year in a ‘good place’ as we
say, and I had taken some time out that morning to again press in and allow God
to infill me afresh as my Encourager, Comforter and Helper. The year prior had
ended rather heavily, and this one was again starting out with its own new sets
of weights. Truth be told, my outward appearance of calm belied many an emotion
that I was dealing with based on several business and family-related challenges.
I don’t know about you sis, but I prefer to fight new battles. It can be tough
to see old demons you thought you’d slain resurrect, and to have to again fight
battles you thought you’d had victories in previously. To have to deal with
those in addition to new battles? It was an intense period for me, sis.
Intense!

But what do you do? You put on a bold face, mindful that the
family is counting on you to set the tone for the holidays and festivities,
right? You know that saying, ‘ain’t
nobody happy if mama ain’t happy?’  The
thing with having older children though is that they can see through your
charade, lol. They might not know the specifics of whatever is going on with
you, but they see and they know …..and thankfully in my case, they didn’t ask
too many questions but rather chose to seriously love on me in that period, which
made it oh so much easier to deal with.

This morning of the 2^nd though, I was just drained and
as I went into my prayer closet, I had no specific words. I simply bawled
before the Lord. Yes, it was a real ‘groanings
that can’t be uttered’ situation, sis. I cried, prayed in tongues, cried
some more, and then managed an odd almost-comical-if-it-weren’t-so-serious
combination of both. When I was done (and I could literally sense God
asking me, ‘You done?’), I sat
quietly and waited to hear what the Lord would say. I had no plan to move
unless He spoke. He was silent for a quite a while, or so I thought initially.
I finally realized though that while my mouth had stopped moving, He was
waiting on me to be truly quiet in my spirit. Eventually, I heard Him. The
first thing He said was “1^st
Corinthians 16 verse 9”. I looked it up: “For a wide door of
opportunity for effectual [service] has opened to me [there, a great and
promising one], and [there are] many adversaries”. It so made sense, sis!

Honestly, it made so much sense that I literally burst into
laughter. Adversaries? Many adversaries? Oh yes, I had certainly seen that. I
had seen them in the physical and clearly, they were also working in the
spiritual realm. I laughed because I realized that all the noise was because of
the ‘wide door of opportunity’ …the ‘opportunity for effectual service’
that has been opened up to me. The Amplified version of the Bible qualifies
this door of opportunity as being ‘great
and promising’ meaning that there is a mountain of glory that God will get
by my walking in through that door and faithfully deploying on the assignments
of service that He would have me do for Him. No wonder the forces of darkness
had been battling against me! I could see it clearly, sis. I could! I mean, to
be fair…it’s not that I didn’t know, but sometimes there is a clarity with
which the Lord uses His word to redefine certain things for you that leads to a
greater ‘aha’ than your general ‘knowing’ of a thing.

I laughed, sis. I laughed from my core, and then I burst into
songs of praise. Nothing had fundamentally changed in the physical, but I knew
without a doubt that many things had shifted in the heavenly realm. My focus
shifted from the attacks and the adversaries, to the victory and the
opportunity ahead. And again the Lord spoke a word to me, another simple word.
He said: ‘CAPACITY’…Halleluyah! That
is another message, sis. I will deal with that in my next post, sharing with
you the things He then began to speak to me regarding that word. I sang songs
of praise and prayed prayers of thanksgiving with an assurance that no matter
how the storms may rage, the voice of my God is louder than the noise of many
waters. I felt the release, sis. I did!

I then prayed for grace, sis. I asked for grace not to forget the
reason for the challenges. I prayed for grace to see the door of opportunity,
not to miss it, not to allow anything becloud my vision. I prayed for courage
to walk through it, and I prayed for the strength to obey promptly in the
course of the assignment waiting for me at the other side of the door. As I
stood to leave my prayer closet, the blouse I spoke about earlier caught my eye
for some reason. I really am not one to ‘save’ new things to wear them at some
future time so quite frankly, I took it that it caught my eye because that was
exactly what I should wear that day. I immediately yanked off the label (one of
my ways of ensuring I don’t change my mind) and  as I made to throw it away, the words on it
caught my eye in greater detail. And yes sis, the label was “GRACE…the perfect fit”. Very odd for
a clothing label don’t you think? Or perhaps not odd at all! As I stood there,
the Holy Spirit began to speak to me about grace and this is what I want to
leave you with.

Sis, no matter how the storms of life buffet you, and we will all
face storms at various times and seasons….there is grace available for you,
sis. There is grace available for me. The Holy Spirit said to me that as long as
we remain connected to God, as long as we recognize and go to battle in His
strength and not our own, as long as we remember to lift Him above our
struggles, as long as we don’t try to find the solutions for Him, as long as we
look and spend time in His word, as long as we remain committed to give Him
glory for the victory… grace will be and is available sis. And this grace is
available in the EXACT measure which we require in every instance! I don’t know
about you, but that is such a comforting and uplifting reality, sis.

Maybe you are in a seamless season at this point in your life. Let
me assure you that this is only because there is a perfect-fit-grace that is carrying you and constraining every
difficulty that could otherwise arise. Give God the praise, sis. If you have no
significant worries currently, it is not of your own making. It is grace and
mercy saying ‘No’. But if like me you
are in a ‘going though’ season, let
me assure you again also, the you are still standing because of the same perfect-fit-grace. I pray that you and I
never lose our confidence in this reality, sis. By the power of God, I pray we
will allow His Word, His sufficiency, His perfect-fit-grace
to wash over us now and every day of our lives…that we might truly live and
walk the overcoming life that He desires us to live. The Lord will help you
sis. He will help me.

Be blessed…..for you surely are!