The Confines of Grace: Awakening to the Power of the Present Moment.

I learnt this lesson the hard way:

Stop kicking the can down the road. Stop leaning into a future event, present activity, or expectation as a crutch for stability or a basis for your identity.

I don’t think I’d ever truly lived in the present fully as myself; fully independent of external milestones, projected pit stops, or future aspirations.

I had always lived with an expectation or a dependency on an external role, function, or obligation. I had never lived for myself, in myself, as myself. I don’t think I knew how to; and that was the source of my pain, sorrow, and suffering.

Then Grace stepped in.

I suddenly found myself hedged in. The projected pit stops, the milestones, the external props were denied me in this current place and season, causing pain and suffering; a sense of lack, a sense of loss, and a sense of vulnerability. This sense of being hedged in became the root cause of chest pains, crushing anxiety, fear, and unease.

I was left no option but to seek answers, asking deep and uncomfortable questions of myself.

Who is this person, this identity, that feels adrift and is racked with pain and suffering in the absence of external validation? Who is this “I” that doesn’t know how to be, function, or live without these attachments and distractions?

The answer to these questions unveiled the “construct”; the false self, the ego. Now I know that Grace placed me in that uncomfortable season so that the false may be stripped away, and the real me may stand fully in the image and light of the Heavenly Father, in whom we live, move, and have our being.