A Thousand Points of Grace

Recently I was looking through some old papers from college, and I found a card I had once purchased but never sent. It had a quote from Martin Luther King Jr on the front. "Only in the darkness can you see the stars."

I remember purchasing that card for a boyfriend at the time. I don't know why I picked it as neither of us were going through a particularly difficult time.

Back then I think I probably had a vague idea of the meaning of those words, but I was young and had lived a fairly charmed life. To me, it was more of a nice sentiment than something of profound meaning.

Now, fifteen years later, I understand more of what MLK meant. But instead of seeing stars in the darkness, now I see a million points of grace.

Too often it seems we come face to face with tragedy. On a national level, on a community level, and on a personal level. Sadness is never as distant as we may wish it to be.

But the remarkable thing is that the more I see sadness and tragedy, the more I see hope.

I see God's hands and God's work, clearing the paths in front of us, holding us up when we feel ourselves stumbling, wrapping His love around us like a cloak when we have lost and feel loss and are lost.

It has become a bit of a national cliche over the last few years that when there is disaster, we should always look for the helpers. They are always there.

We can stop there. We can feel warmth in the good that can come from humanity. Or we can look up. We can understand that it's through each other that God offers some of his greatest graces. That those are human hands helping up the afflicted, but it's God's heart that is prompting them.

And we can find hope in that because human hearts will always stumble, but the love and grace and compassion of God is eternal.

We live in a broken world and the weight of sadness around us can feel stifling. But it's during those times that if we rely on God, He will light our way. He will show us His hope. His grace will fall down all around us like a galaxy of shooting stars, lighting our path.

We just have to seek it. Those points of grace are there. They are our gifts in the darkness, and they will light our way home.