Found

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.-Anne Lamott

Terms of resurrection are in the past tense, but they don’t stay there. Anne Lamott’s quotation gets at what I mean. Just as being raised from the dead describes a (rather marvelous and unexpected) single event that continues to matter in the present and even shape the unfolding future, being found by grace is not some kind of checklist thing. God’s mercy found us at some point, of course. Perhaps it was a moment, maybe a gentle stream of moments over time. That past action continues. It keeps meeting and finding and flowing, and as it does it carries us beyond where we once were.

And even here, in the present, which feels so often stuck or slow or lonely, it does not leave us. God does not leave us. There is more to be found, more to be freed, more to be upended, more to be set right.

Gracious God, yours is a love that delights in finding and rejoices in revelation. You discover treasure where others see emptiness, and you traded all that you had and all that you are to find and free the whole creation. We give you thanks that what you have found can never be lost. Teach us to trust your way of making and mending this old world. Give us a holy hunger for the kindness of your kingdom. 

Amen 

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. -Matthew 13.44