Arriving to interview a lady for a story a few weeks ago, I was feeling prepared. My voice recorder was charged and ready, I had my list of questions ready to go and I was early.
As I stepped out of my car, my glass water bottle fell to the ground and started rolling down the street. As I ran to retrieve it, I dropped my phone, my shoe strap came undone and I was pretty sure I looked anything but prepared.
I quickly picked up my phone, checking that the screen was still in one piece, and scurried to retrieve my water bottle from the gutter a few metres away. I grinned to myself as I sat back in my car. I must have looked fairly ridiculous at this point, but hey, sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself.
Pulling myself together and fixing my rogue shoe strap, I checked my phone. "Running late, be there soon - Dawn."
"Oh thank goodness!" I thought. She was running late and didn't even see my circus performance. As waves of relief rushed through me, I prepared for entrance number two which, may I say, was much more graceful and ladylike and I was so grateful for a second chance.
Second chances
As I sat and listened to Dawn (www.seeingbeauty.com.au) telling me how her life had changed from being a rollercoaster of financial and business success, to a life of serving others through a tragic bout of illness, I began thinking about second chances.
Teaching teenagers about self-worth and providing workshops for women who have survived and escaped from domestic violence is a far cry from the insecure, hurt young girl that Dawn used to be. But once God showed up in her life, she was never the same.
Transformations
When I think about miracles, it's not always the instant healings that come to mind. It is the transformation of lives.
I don't know if there is such a thing as a clean-cut Christian. To need a saviour means that we have needed to be saved from something. To have God send his son to die for our sins means that we were so far gone, there was no way we could save ourselves. No amount of rituals, sacrifice or religiosity was going to help us. We needed a God who loved us and the only one possible, was the creator himself.
It's phenomenal
And that's where we get to see his glory. Not just in the phenomenal existence of millions of galaxies; not just the amazing way the sun creates a different portrait in the sky for each sunset; not just by the incredible gift of new life every time a baby is born, and that not one fingerprint is the same - but his glory is also seen in the transformation of lives; of God taking something that seems worthless, deserted and of no worth in the eyes of others, and putting worth back into it; breathing new life into it; holding it in his hands and gazing at it with so much pride and love, knowing that it is very good - and that this was worth dying for.
Even in our mess
When God finds us in our mess of life, he is not repelled. He is waiting for us to reach our weary, tired hand in the air and say, "help". Nothing will hold him back. He will race to you with a swoosh and an all encompassing bounty of love. In fact, all of heaven will rejoice. He's just waiting to love us and repair us and welcome us back into his fold.
Luke chapter 15 verses 1 to 7 tells us of the man who left his 99 sheep to find the one that wandered off. "And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbours together and says, 'Rejoice with me: I have found my lost sheep.' I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent."
Go on, put your hand up.
Rebecca and her husband Tony, have four children and live on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. Rebecca loves writing children stories, interest articles and teaching piano. She is grateful for a God who loves us.
Rebecca Moore's previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/rebecca-moore.html