11.20.2024 | Ordinary Wednesday

A beautiful morning here in the Carondelet Garden.  It is still dark with temperatures in the lower 40s but abundant sunshine is expected later on with highs reaching into the mid to upper 50s here in South Saint Louis.  Still no frost and these beauties are still giving us grace in the garden.

I was reading somewhere recently, I wish I could remember where, and it said, "Go be your favorite self."  We are used to higher, faster, better, best but, "favorite" leaves room for grace.  We need grace right now.  Maybe more than ever.  Phillip Yancey gave the greatest definition of grace ever when he said something like, Grace means God cannot love you any more than he does right now, and God cannot love you any less.  Period.  God loves you, just the way you are, right now.  Grace!  Simple and yet so hard to accept.  

I've come to the conclusion these past few years that I want a simple, ordinary life.  I want to find the things that are important to me and then discover the simplest pathway to getting them in my life.  I must admit, I'm done with the rules about the number of things you are allowed to own, or what you are allowed to do, where you are allowed to go, how much you can spend, what kind of car or truck you can drive, where you should live or what you need.  No labels!  Just a simple path to a life that works for me.  I want to have a bit of compassion for myself.  Keep doing what I love, master a few skills and acknowledge the progress when it happens.  

C,S. Lewis once wrote, "You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending."  It's a good day to write our own ending.  We can even start right now.  The good news is, we can then start again tomorrow.  Grace!  That's all the news from here in the Carondelet Garden.