Seemingly Mismatched

So I'm sitting in the waiting room waiting for my name to be called.  My husband is in surgery.  He is having his ACL replaced and some cartilage repaired from an accident a few weeks ago.

I've got a book on kindle and I'm speeding through it.  It's amazing what can happen when a stay at home, homeschooling mom of three young boys has semi quiet uninterrupted time.  

So in the quietness of the waiting as the rap music ringtone blares naturally everyone turns around to see who it belongs too.  Funny thing the ringtone didn't match it's owner.   

Not. At. All. 

And I as I mulled over the seemingly mismatched woman and her ringtone, The Lord in his grace quietly spoke to my heart.  "Do your words, excitement and appreciation about and for Jesus seem mismatched to some?"

Ouch.  You see I'm in love with the story of David.  How God chose him instead of his brothers, how beautiful 1 Samuel 16:7.  "But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart."

I am grateful beyond words that our Lord looks at the heart.   Mine is deceitful above all else (Jeremiah tells us that)...but I do know that something powerful resides there.  That is my heart where Christ sent His spirit to dwell and teach, correct, instruct and remind of His word and His goodness and grace. 

I want my outside to match my inside.   I know that I've asked Christ in my heart and so I know that have has been abundantly poured out upon my life, will be abundantly poured out on me each day and will one day take me home to Him.  None of which I deserve.  All of which is a free gift of God and He says

So when I say I want my outside to match my inside. I want my life to be lived as a conduit of grace 

I'll never forget one evening my husband and I decided to be brave and take our three young boys out to eat. At the time they were 2, 4 and 6.  It's always a risk.  To be honest parents can't control their kids. Not really.  All we can do it guide them to making good decisions and correct them when they make bad ones. So going out to dinner with three young boys who have been taught to behave could go two ways: good or bad.   This particular evening went amazing. So much so that at the end of our meal a gentleman in his 80's came over and said "I would like to give each one of you boys a quarter. I've been watching you and you are all being so well behaved."

That man with his small kind act extended grace to us whether he knew it nor not.  As a tired mother of three young boys sometimes you need to hear that they are decent kids.  

That man didn't know how much I needed that encouragement that day.  And he could've looked at me and thought "those well behaved kids don't match that frazzled mother."  But instead he extended grace.  

That's what I want to do.  I want to live with the grace of God overflowing to others because He has certainly poured it upon me abundantly.  

I want the grace I extend to come close to matching the grace I've received.  

And as I thought through this in the semi quiet waiting room I began to smile.  Maybe that ringtone does match that lady and good for her for having the confidence to choose it.  After all it wasn't obscene and who am I to say it doesn't match her.