12:9

The circumstances are somewhat different, but this text from my morning devotional was so relevant to me today... I love how the Lord can place the right reading before me at just the right moment.... and today I'm especially grateful, that even through the loss of a child, even through peculiar and painful circumstances His grace is, is, IS enough. I'm also thankful that His love lends me the gentle reminder that He is with me-even in the midst of this...

-Lisa

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2 Corinthians 12:9

 ^"But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. ” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me."

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"It had pleased God to remove my youngest child under circumstances of peculiar trail and pain; and as I laid my little son's body to rest in the churchyard, on return home, I felt it my duty to preach to my people on the meaning of trial.

Finding that this text (2 Cor 12:9) was in the lesson for the following Sabbath, I chose it as my Master's message to them and myself; but on trying to prepare the notes, I found in honesty I could not say that the words were true; and therefore knelt down and asked God to let His grace be sufficient for me. While I was thus pleading, I opened my eyes and saw framed an illuminated text, which my mother had given me only a few days before, and which I had told my servant to place upon the wall during my abscence at the holiday resort where my little one was taken away from us.
I did not notice the words on returning to my house; but as I looked up and wiped my eyes, the words met my gaze, "My grace is sufficient for thee."  The "is" was picked out in bright green while the "My" and the "thee" were painted another color.

In one moment the message came straight to my soul as a rebuke for offering such a prayer as. "Lord, let Thy grace be sufficient for me"; for the answer was almost an audible voice, "How dare you ask that which is?" God cannot make it any more sufficient than He has made it; get up and believe it, and you will find it true, because the Lord says it in the simplest way: "My grace is (not shall or may be) sufficient for thee."

"My," "is," and "thee" were from that moment, I hope, indelibly fixed upon my heart; and I (thank God) have been trying to live in the reality of the message from that day forward to the present time.

The lesson that came to me, and which I seek to convey to others, is, Never turn God's facts into hopes, or prayers, but simply use them as realities, and you will find them powerful as you believe them."

~Prebendary H. W. Webb Peploe

He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,

He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;

To added affliction He addeth His mercies,

To multiplied trials His multiplied peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,

When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,

When we reach the end of our hoarded resources

Our Father's full giving is only begun.

His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,

His power no boundary known unto men;

For out of His infinite riches in Jesus

He giveth and giveth and giveth again.

~Annie Johnson Flint