By Grace Saved

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV

This verse saved me. Not in an instant. Not in a glorious heavens opening, angels singing kind of way. This verse saved me over time. God put it on my heart and grew it there over nearly four years until it sprouted this blog. My hope is that it will continue to grow here and inspire anyone who visits it to find your own saving grace through Christ.

God is with us. Emmanuel. It is the day after Christmas in the year 2020 as I sit down to craft this inaugural post (I googled inaugural and it can be used in this context…). This year has been a challenge for so many people. Something about collective suffering really humanizes us all. Over the last 15 years, social media has created an outlet for sharing the best, and often unrealistic, version of ourselves with the world. It creates the illusion that all of our “friends” are happy, successful, beautiful, fun, and so much better than we view ourselves. So we fall victim to the cycle of presenting our best selves on the internet, pushing that pile of dirty clothes out of the way so it isn’t visible in our overly filtered selfie. But God sees the clothes and He made the beautiful face under the filter and He feels all the pain that comparision is growing in your heart. He loves you in your mess. He loves you in hard times. He loves you in good times. He is there when you talk to Him as a father and friend just like He is there when you when you find yourself only coming to Him in need.

For many people, this has been one of the hardest years of their lives. It has definitely been a challenging year with many unexpected twists and turns. However, for me, the was not the worst year I can remember. I’ve been in a season of suffering for the last four years. Like anything though, it isn’t that simple. These last four years have also been some of the greatest of my life. I have an amazing husband and two precious children. A son who is six and a daughter who is three. My daughter was born three weeks before an event that changed the entire course of my life. An event that led to the majority of the suffering that was worse for me than anything 2020 threw my way. But that is the thing about life. It isn’t just suffering or just happiness. It is a mix of everything. And God is with us through it all.

I’ve been very blessed to have been raised by two strong Christian parents who taught me that you always go to God first with everything, praise, thanksgiving, suffering and pain. That is an easy thing to give lip service to when you are young and the challenges of your life, while feeling large, are in the grand scheme of things trivial. It is when something large happens, something life altering, that our faith truly gets tested. While I didn’t always go to God immeadiately He kept knocking me down until I had no choice to fall back on that foundation. My story is not one of losing faith. I’ve thankfully always had it. It is one of learning to rely on your faith first versus your own ability to control your life. It is one of finding the Grace of God in the worst of circumstances and knowing that if you seek Him you will always find Him. It is about trusting that while you may not understand your suffering while you are in it, He will someday show you why you went through it if you just have faith that He is always with you and will get you through.

I am sharing my story not because I enjoy talking about myself or have any accomplishments of my own to boast. God is still writing my story. The only success I have acheived is my contentment to live out the story God has given me and do my best to find my purpose and His will in all that I do. Maybe someday it will lead to the world’s definition of success but for now I’m just a daughter of Christ, wife, mother, daughter, friend, civil servant, and business woman taking life one day at a time seeking my purpose in Christ Jesus. Following that path led me here. To ByGraceSaved.com to tell my story in hopes that you are able to find the Grace of God in your own story by hearing how I continue to seek it in mine.

When you read, I hope you see the beautiful mess that I am and know that everything I am and everything I have is a gift from God. I have done nothing by my own works and seek no boasting in my stories. I hope to create a community where daughters (and sons) of Christ can share their experiences of God’s grace so that others may find it as well.

Thank you for reading and God bless you all.

In Christ,

Kelsey