A PICTURE OF GRACE

Wendy and Terri

Tomorrow my sister Terri would have been 49.  She was the feistiest person I have ever known.  For as long as I remember, she was a "pistol" as my dad use to call her.

As I set out to chronicle moments of grace this new year, her life was definitely a picture of grace.

From the time Terri was 14 or 15 she lived a life defined by addiction.  She wanted to be different, but didn't exactly know how to make that happen.  For most of her adult life, she was absent.  Absent from home, holidays, family get togethers, life in general.  On an average of about twice a year, she would call me in the middle of the night crying out for help.  Our conversation was the same every time.

She was convinced that she had made too many bad decisions to ever be forgiven or made whole again.  She longed for a "do-over" but never thought that possible.

In August of 2006 my dad called one night to tell me that Terri had been in an accident.  She had hitch-hiked to Virginia and after only the second night there she was on a bicycle in the middle of the night and ran into an opened man-hole.  She sustained irreparable damage to her spine that would leave her paralyzed for the rest of her life.

What a tragedy.  What a horrible, tragic.....miracle!  What?  A miracle?  Yes!  For you see, that is the day that she was set free from a life of addiction.  That is the day that she cried out to her Savior in the middle of the night, from the bottom of a ditch to save her!

After almost 2 weeks of unconsciousness she was able to share with me how she had known immediately that she was paralyzed and thought that she was dying so she did the only thing left to do.  She cried out to Jesus!

Psalm 18:6 says, "In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help.  From His temple He heard my voice; my cry came before Him, into His ears."

Psalm 107:27-28 says, "...at their wits' end....they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He brought them out of their distress."

She spent the next 6 years confined to a bed and wheelchair and experienced lots of pain and suffering, but there was never a time that she didn't say that she was thankful that it happened because that's what it took to turn her to the Lord, to bring her out of her distress, to end her addiction, to bring her home.

God's grace is amazing.  We can never run too far that we can't be rescued.  We can never out sin His grace.  He is always there just waiting for us to come home.

As Terri celebrates with Jesus tomorrow, I celebrate the fact that even though she is not here with us, we will all be reunited in Heaven one day because of His amazing grace!