As the year is coming to a close, Joni reflects on how God’s grace doesn’t just save you once—it sustains, shapes, and transforms even the most broken lives into instruments of His glory.
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SHAUNA: I’m Shauna with Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope. Thank you for joining us!
JONI: I love the grace of God. It’s amazing that grace not only once saved me, but that grace is now shaping and it’s sustaining me decades later. And around this time of year, in December, I always take inventory. I check to see if I am still amazed, still astounded that God saved me by His grace. And if I’m not? If my soul has become jaded or dry? I stir up the cold ashes; I do what 2 Timothy 1 says to do: I fan my cold heart into flame by saying out loud, “Oh, God, you’re so full of grace. You even saved a junkyard, dog nasty sinner like me.” And then I recall my old life before Jesus, I focus on the cross, I treasure my salvation, and I ask the Holy Spirit to help me stir up those cold ashes. And I say, “Give my soul spirit, give my heart heat and passion for what Jesus did to save me.”
And as I do more inventory on my life, I look back over the year to see if, day by day, I made use of grace that God gives to shape me and sustain me. I ask myself, “Joni, have you taken hold of that grace? Have you appropriated the mercies that you say are new every morning? Or do you live life on automatic?” [As if I could]. I simply cannot live life on cruise control. My brokenness will not allow it. With my disability? I am constantly like that “bruised reed” in Isaiah 42. There is hardly a day that I’m put in my wheelchair that I don’t sit up and say, “Oh, Jesus, I get to experience another miracle. I’m sitting up and facing the morning! Thank you!” You know, it is my brokenness through which I can appreciate the grace of God that sustains me and shapes me every day into the image of Jesus.
I mean, just a few Sundays ago, I left church services, and I was in miserable pain, but I didn’t want to bug Ken about it right after worship, so, God gave me an enormous measure of shaping, sustaining grace all the way home. So that, as we drove up the freeway, I didn’t grumble about my discomfort; instead, I was able to converse with Ken about the sermon. We pulled up into the driveway, and I allowed him time to change when we got in the door. And then only after a brief lunch, it was then that I asked my husband: “Please help me adjust my corset. I’m in pain and would you fix the binders to bring relief? Now, that was grace. No complaining, but grace. Freely and abundantly given by God all in my brokenness. And as a bruised reed? I was so grateful for grace that sustained me in that awful pain and also shaped me to be more like my Savior who never complained. Believe me, I don’t say all this to boast. Rather, I boast in my afflictions. Those afflictions are the ones that give me access to God’s transforming power. And so, I boast in the Lord.
And here at year’s end, please friend, remember that the grace of God not only once saved you. The grace of God is freely offered to sustain you and shape you to become more like Christ. In your own brokenness, will you avail yourself to the Lord of grace? As J.R. Miller once wrote, “Christ is building His kingdom with earth’s broken things. People usually want the strong and unbroken, in building their kingdoms; but God is the God of those who are broken. There is no bruised reed that Christ cannot restore to glorious blessedness and beauty. He can take the life crushed by pain or sorrow and make it into a harp whose music shall be all praise.”
© Joni and Friends