Personal Narrative: My Second Journey As The Ragamuffin Gospel
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Grace is a marvelous gift. In my own life, I didn’t fully realize God’s grace until I had my “second journey” as the Ragamuffin Gospel talks about (Manning, 2005, pp. 163). I will describe how my second journey made me realize God’s grace, and how I couldn’t live without it. Manning (2005) writes, “The second journey begins when we know we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the morning program” (pp. 165). My second call began this summer in the beginning of June. I was a Liberty University Graduate who was planning on finishing her four year Biblical theology degree from Evangel. I thought I had it all together. I thought God had called me to a grand ministry somewhere. What I didn’t realize is that I was sick, and a crash…show more content… He was teaching me about grace. He wanted to teach me about undeserved, passionate, red hot grace. Feeling as though I wanted it all to end, I sat on the bench in the orchard as my mind would summersault with the argument of life and death. One day, as I sat with my dad, he reached out and took my hand. He said, “Addie, no matter what you are, what you do, or what happens, I will always love you. And I will do anything I need to make you better.” It was when I realized what my Heavenly Father was trying to tell me. He was trying to show me that grace cannot and will not be earned. Grace is for those who are broken, those who are smashed, and those who have nothing left to give.
During this period of my life I questioned God. Everything I thought I had known, every theology I had argued, every tradition that I kept, it burned away in the fires of this trial. Everyone told me how to be victorious in God, but no one had ever told me how to suffer. And I did suffer, not sure if the God I gave my life too really ever existed. Manning (2005) writes, “The biblical image of the victorious life reads more like the victorious limp” (pp. 182). After the start of my second journey, I can say that it is a limp every day. Moment by moment and hour by hour grace pulls me from one thing to