As we traverse the first year anniversary of my husband’s open heart surgery, we are flooded with memories, many unpleasant to recall. Yet, we remain overwhelmed with how God’s grace covered us from the first twinge signaling something amiss, to four months later exiting through the rehab door for the final time.

Grace: the freely given and unmerited favor and love of God. Blessing: a special favor, mercy or gift bestowed by God. 

Those months filled to the brim with God’s grace and blessings. Treasures in the hard sparkled around us like fireflies rising up from lawns and fields on a warm summer night, uncountable flashes of grace illuminating the darkness. We remarked about them, calling out “small graces” as we recognized another splash of God’s compassionate love and mercy. With gentleness, His blessings piled up around us providing a deep cushion of protection and comfort.

Those firefly graces lit up a path strewn with glowing gems. Treasure after treasure God granted us. A year later, scooping our hands into that treasure trove of amazing-grace gems that accumulated through our journey, we examine and remember their beauty and significance

• The remarkable ruby of our medical team who not only demonstrated great knowledge and skill, but compassion, tenderness, and gentle humor. 
• The brilliant diamond of inexpressible joy as our children circled around the morning of surgery to join hands and hearts before our merciful God. 
• The transparent sapphire of experiencing “peace that passes all understanding”, promised in His Word. 
• The deep emerald of protection as family travelled hazardous winter roads to and from the hospital without incident. 
• The stunning yellow danburite reflecting the prayers of friends and family covering the entire journey. 
• The pearl of a canceled procedure that moved surgery to the next day, instead of the ominous weeks-away, restricted to a hospital bed, predicted wait. 

All these gems, just a few of many, nestled in mounds of small, daily graces that glimmered through each day.

Who is our family that He should be so gracious towards us? (Psalm 144:3) What have we done to deserve His bottomless compassion and grace? We have done nothing. He has done everything. (Titus 3:5) We are recipients not because of who we are, but because of who He is. (I John 4:19) As He pursued each of us through our lives with His hurricane force love, we bent as trees beneath the weight of His wind and mercy. (How He Loves, John Mark McMillan; “Surely your goodness and faithfulness will pursue me all my days.” Psalm 23:6, The NET Bible) We submitted and committed to this gracious, all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present, merciful, God. And He poured Himself upon us and into our lives (Romans 5:5; I Timothy 1:14).

Thus He was present with us and merciful to us in our hard. He sprinkled grace after grace and infused blessing after blessing into our difficulty.

This same mercy and grace is available to all who call Him Father. Have you welcomed Him into your heart and life? There is no greater joy than to walk through our days with the freely given and unmerited favor and love of God. Can you see the firefly graces He is orchestrating for you? Come. Dance among the shimmering light of His indulgent and generous grace He pours into your life; grace that shines the brightest, in the darkness of the hard.