Today’s story is not about today, but rather about people in general, about human life as we live it. I happened to walk into my kitchen today to see the sun glinting off this set of handcuffs, and the image looked interesting so I grabbed the camera to capture it. While I was grabbing the camera, the wearer stood up and the sun went behind the clouds. This picture is as close as I could come to re-creating the moment, and it’s a fail. But when I was cropping it, which I usually don’t do to my Project 365 pics (oooh, did you catch that? We are 365ing again!!), I realized it was a great image to go with the post I warned you was coming a few days ago, the one about sinning and why we do it.

Recently, I had an intense experience with God’s mercy and grace. I’ve been saved a long time, since I was a young child, but I finally “got it”. I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to earn love. God’s love, men’s love, my parent’s love, people’s love. And I have failed, and failed miserably at it most of the time. The other night, I came face to face with God’s free grace and boundless love, a love that remains no matter what. I can’t earn it, because it’s already mine. It can’t be lessened by my actions because my actions have nothing to do with it. God loves me because I exist. He brought me into existence and He loves me. He loves me when I do what He wants me to do, and He loves me when I don’t. And nothing I do will ever change that. Do you realize how powerful that is?

Now, let’s explore that sin thing. I said the other day that we sin because we are sinners, and not the other way around. Mortal man can no more avoid sin that he can avoid breathing. Somehow, everyday, we will sin: we’ll become angry for no good reason, we’ll covet, we’ll think badly of someone, we’ll be selfish or unkind, we will do that which displeases God. Pastor has lately been saying that man could not keep the rules when there was only one (don’t eat from that tree), and how much less can we keep them now, when there are so many??? Now, that isn’t to say we should not try to avoid sin, but just that when we do fail, we don’t lose God’s love. Since we didn’t merit to begin with, we don’t lose it.

God’s free salvation is for everyone. Even for me, wretch that I am. Even for you. Free means free, even for me. He loves me. He loves me. He loves me. No matter what. As my bff Ang. said, think about that book that you read to your babies Love You Forever, and that’s how God feels about you. Right now. Yesterday. Tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that, forever and ever and ever. He loves you.

Now then, you probably noticed the list I mentioned way up there had a lot more than God’s love on it. I thought I was going to be able to tell that story today as part of this one, but I find I cannot yet do that. Those handcuffs really go with that other, still untold story, but I am leaving them because…I don’t have another picture for today, and because this one is a powerful reminder of where I have been.