Of Grace and mustard seeds...

Someone asked me how I came up with the name for my blog.  It wasn't complicated... it just came to me.  When I was first diagnosed with cancer I knew that I wanted to blog about my journey in a public way.  I had found and read many blogs about cancer but they were mostly personal journals about chemo treatments, hair loss, emotions... I knew from the start I wanted my blog to be about God's grace throughout the journey.  So I knew the title must reflect that.

However, the truth is also that I was afraid.  There is so much uncertainly attached to cancer, so many unanswered questions.  You honestly do not know whether you will live or die.  You do not know if you'll survive the treatments, if the cancer will spread, if the chemo will work.  You do. not. know.  There is great fear unlike anything you've ever known before.  

And then you pick yourself up by your boot straps and you set your mind on fighting the fight and winning the battle.  One of the first things I thought was, "I don't have enough faith for this."

But Jesus said, "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed..."  A mustard seed is only about the size of a pencil lead.  That's not much, and yet, it's enough.  I knew then that the title would also have to incorporate the idea of the mustard seed.

What I didn't know was that Grace and Mustard Seeds wouldn't just be the title of my blog, but that it would also become the theme of my journey, my life.  

Everything I do is simply and only by his grace.  I cannot wake up in the morning other than by God's grace.  I cannot breath or sleep or eat or jog or clean my house unless it's by God's grace.  Everything I do is only by his grace.  

And then there's faith.  I have had to reevaluate what I believed lately.  Not that my theology has changed; It has not.  More that my  understanding   of faith has changed.  I used to think, "I believe because ___________."  Now, it's more that, "I believe."  It's a simpler kind of faith...more like that grain of mustard seed.  It isn't complicated, it just "is."

Every moment of my day, every trial I still face, every battle line that is drawn I face with two weapons: God's grace and faith as a mustard seed.  I believe these two things will carry me through anything that is thrown my way.  

Only By His Grace,

Billie