Do Not Be Weary But Give Grace Always

    As I sit here at the kitchen counter surrounded by pizza fixins and a pile of chocolate chip cookies I can't help but ponder what God has brought into my life and teach me even within the past couple minutes. Through out yesterday and today God has opened my eyes to something that I knew was there and been working on but brought a deeper understanding to it in my life. I am a very selfish person and therefore if things, or people, do not do as I have planned, I immediately throw up my hands and in a groaning voice exclaim "Dear Lord, give me patience and grace, and help me to love them!" When in reality I don't want patience, love, and grace I just want to get rid of the "problem" so I can have my life according to me. I am ashamed to say that I acted that way. I then purposed to right the wrong I had done. When with talking to a friend he pointed out that it's not wrong to pray for patience, love, and grace but it's the heart behind it. The way I did it was for show not for the actual learning of the discipline. I had to ask myself "Am I willing to put myself out there and train myself in this?" To give grace always? Even when it doesn't go the way I thought it would? What exactly is grace? 
   Again tonight I was blown away by God's goodness as multiple other situations were brought into my path that required love and grace. An apprentice came into the kitchen with an issue concerning grace, love, decisions with consequences. I prayed that God would give me the picture and words of grace. He ever so lovingly impressed upon my mind the picture of His Son Jesus Christ coming to earth giving grace constantly, loving us no matter what we have done and dying upon the cross for our sins. Everyday God gives me grace for the fumbles and stumbles, and the mistakes that I make. Yet He continually loves me and guides me through every decision right or wrong, along with the consequences of those decisions to teach me more of His love! With that reality in mind, how can I not give grace and love to those around me?!? 

1. Galatians 6:9
   And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

   2 Thessalonians 3:13

   King James Version (KJV)

   ¹³ But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing.
   
   Dictionary.com 
   Grace:
   
   

   a manifestation of favor, especially by a superior: It was only through the dean's grace that I wasn't expelled from school. Synonyms: forgiveness, charity, mercifulness. Antonyms: animosity, enmity, disfavor.

   5.

   mercy; clemency; pardon: He was saved by an act of grace from the governor. Synonyms: lenity, leniency, reprieve. Antonyms: harshness.

    

    

   Merriman-Webster

    

   a : unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification

   b : a virtue coming from God

   c : a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace

   2

   a : approval, favor <stayed in his good graces>

   b archaic : mercy, pardon

   c : a special favor : privilege <each in his place, by right, not grace, shall rule his heritage — Rudyard Kipling>

   d : disposition to or an act or instance of kindness, courtesy, or clemency

   e : a temporary exemption : reprieve