Wind Chimes and Amazing Grace

When my husband asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I told him some outdoor wind chimes.  The ones I had were well-used, well-weathered and the windcatcher had been rehung more times than it should have been.  So the week prior to Christmas, he suggested we go and I pick out the ones I wanted.  I told him okay, but I didn't want to look them ... I wanted to listen and choose it from the sound it made.  (And, yes, then he was suppose to buy it, take it home and wrap it so I could unwrap it Christmas morning and be surprised.)

And so as I stood in the local hardware store with my back to the several dozen chimes hanging from the indoor gazebo, my husband began touching the windcatchers to make them do their thing -- chime.  He moved from one to the next until there was a symphony of tones filling that warehouse.  And then I heard it.

"That one!" I said, pointing with my thumb behind me.  "That one right there!"  He started moving back touching each chime as he went.  I said, "No!" pointing again behind me.  "That one!"  Finally, I heard its sound again and cried, "Yes!  That's the one I want!"

It was not until then that I turned around to see what I had chosen.  It was the Mongolian Alto.  "Reminiscent of church and temple bells," its card read.  "Major pentatonic scale in root position in the key of A."  And then I grinned as I read, "The tones found in Amazing Grace."  The smile on my lips paled to the smile etching itself on my heart.  Yes.  How appropriate.

Grace.  It's what my name means and it has been the greatest gift of my life.  Grace that sought me out as an enemy of God and made me His daughter.  Grace that sustains and keeps me.  And as the old hymn goes, grace that will lead me home.

The chimes now hang just outside my sun room window and with the slightest bit of breeze, the tones are not only bringing music to the spheres but are resonating deeply in me.  "Grace!  Grace!" they seem to sing.  Or at least that's what I hear.  (Okay, so one time I did hear "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" which are the same tones in Amazing Grace.)  But when I'm sitting alone in my sun room with a cup of hot tea, I'm not upset my quiet is disrupted.  I hear "Grace."  When I'm irritable or upset, I hear "Grace."  When I'm putting on my make-up, "Grace!"  Sitting at the dinner table with my husband: "Grace!"  The fact is, as I walk this thing out called "life,"  the sounds of grace sing me through the day.

And it just might be God's theme for me in 2013.  On the eve of this New Year, my devotional led me to John 1:16: And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. Yet this particular morning's translation read,  Indeed, from his fullness we have, all of us, received -- one gift replacing another.  

"Grace for grace."  "One gift replacing another." Yes, gratitude, the theme of 2012, seems to be melding right over into 2013.  And I bet if you listen carefully, you might even find it to be the tune of your life, too.

His marvelous grace.  What an amazing gift!

Just an ordinary moment...