Episode 80: Grace Upon Grace

Yes, it’s the grace episode! This recurring feature of the pod gives us the chance to revisit some past episodes and offer corrections and/or clarifications. Tune in as Lisa shares some of her missteps, a personal story, and the lessons she’s learned during Season 3 of the podcast. To help us LIVE IT OUT, we zero in on John 1:16 to see what scripture teaches us about the gift of God’s abundant grace—a gift we are called to share with others.

Links:

Blue Letter Bible

https://www.blueletterbible.org/

Transcript

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Hello, and welcome to the Her Solid Ground Podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Bonima, and I can't wait to dig into God's truth with you today. Let's get grounded. So, as many of you know, I have three daughters. I think I've mentioned it maybe every episode.

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And they are a little bit older now. I've got um two adult children, I guess, technically, a 20-year-old, an 18-year-old, and then I have a 15-year-old. And yeah, raising teenage daughters is a whole thing. So I actually have had several people mention to me that that should be an episode in and of itself, but that's not today's episode. But I will say I can remember several years back having like a really rough night with one of my girls. Like, I mean rough. And, you know, I have to laugh at my younger self who thought that parenting would get easier as they got older. Yeah, not so much. But I remember that night was just a lot of just miscommunication. Both of us were not filtering well. It just got out of hand. And I remember waking up the next morning feeling so weary and defeated. And we did end up apologizing the night before, but it was just that next morning, I did. I just felt the heaviness of what had happened, and I just vowed that I wanted to make it a better day. I knew I couldn't erase the words and the wrongs of yesterday, but I could learn from them and just try to do better as her mom. And so once I poured myself that cup of coffee that we all need right away in the morning, I prayerfully prepared her favorite breakfast. And I it was a small gesture, but it was something I wanted to do with my hands. And um, I wanted just love on her, and I knew she wasn't gonna be ready for a hug, and so I decided to to love on her in that way. So I watched her kind of get ready in the morning. She didn't say much, and she finally put her bag down and sat down to eat breakfast, and she was quiet, you know, clearly feeling just as weary as I was. And so I attempted to start a conversation, but the only thing she could really manage were like, you know, nods and shrugs. And so a few minutes passed of me like attempting to just be kind and win her over with that. She finally mumbled, Why are you being so nice to me? And I quickly responded, Because I love you. And I remember her saying, looking at me and saying, But I was terrible last night. And we both just kind of like sat in silence for a minute, and she she continued to eat her muffin, and so choosing my words carefully this time, I said, You know, I told you last night that I forgive you, and I meant it. So I'm I'm giving you grace. And I remember she like stopped and looked at me, and for once I felt like maybe I said the right thing. But then she put her head down, and I and I heard her say very quietly, I don't feel like I deserve it. And I could just feel her shame like hanging in the air, and it's like I almost I was fighting back my own tears, and I really wanted to to offer her a response. And I finally just said to her, I know that's how grace works. And I remember that story. In fact, I ended up writing about it and and posting it on my Facebook page, and it resonated with a lot of people because it was such a real life example of of life, you know, of the the challenge of raising, you know, teenagers and also just the missteps that we can make it as parents and how how deeply we want to get it right and how often we get it wrong. And, you know, that grace that I was offering my daughter was also grace that I needed myself. And it is the thing we all need. It it's it's easy for me to encourage everyone about how loved they are by God and how you know deeply um valued they are by Him. And we've we've had a podcast about the image of Christ and how we are image bearers and we are beautiful because of that. And those are all really important messages that are 100% true. But what is also true is that we are sinners in need of God's grace. Like we really do mess up, you know, as believers a lot in big ways and in little ways, and in parenting and with our coworkers, with our friends, with um, you know, the people at church sometimes as ministry leaders, like we fall short, and sometimes we just outright sin. And we are in need of grace. And God knows that. You know, God knows that we need his grace, he knows also that we're gonna sin, which is why we are only saved by grace alone, because we're never ever going to be able to get it right. And our God is so kind, you know, that's the meaning of grace. It's it's loving kindness, it's favor, it's God giving us what we don't deserve. It's forgiveness, it's love, it's comfort, it's the ability to try again and again and again and to still be fully loved by God. Like that's that's grace. It's always there, it's always available to us, and it's it's unending. And I I am so grateful for that. I mean, if we are receivers of God's grace and we really understand what that means, what it took for us to get that kind of grace, right? For for Jesus to die on the cross, for that loving kindness of God to send his son to die for our sins. We understand the enormity of that, and then we also then understand how much we still need that, but that is the only way we're ever going to be able to give it away. And so I think the only reason why I was able to offer my daughter grace that morning was because I realized how much I needed it myself. John 1 16 says, For from his fullness we all have received grace upon grace. And I'm sure you've heard that phrase before, grace upon grace. And it's just such a beautiful picture of the unending loving kindness of God. That not only are we saved by grace through faith in him, but that he keeps giving us that grace. And there's no end to it. No end. In fact, I was looking up, I don't know if any of you are familiar with the Blue Letter Bible. It is a um a program that you can get, like either as an app on your phone or you can actually just go on the website. I'll be sure to link it. But it's a really great um resource that you can visit that tells you all sorts of things, like the the root meaning of certain words in Hebrew or in Greek. And it also has like commentaries just to help you really dig into the context of scripture and the meaning behind it. And here's what it had to say it's that the Greek text of this expression, grace upon grace, literally means grace anti-grace. This phrasing appears to be some sort of idiom meaning grace against grace or grace in place of grace. So this expression of grace upon grace conjures up the notion of unending or ceaseless grace, grace that never stops. Like the waves of an ocean, the grace of God is relentless and unending. We have and will receive endless wave of grace after wave of grace after wave of grace into eternity. In Jesus, believers will receive grace upon grace forever. I just thought that was such a beautiful uh description of what we're talking about here about this idea of like waves crashing against us that we can keep counting on every time we make a mistake that God's grace will come meet us there and come meet us there again. And I feel like I've really seen this concept play out here on the podcast. This idea of just God's grace meeting us in waves. Because if I'm completely honest, I feel like every single episode has been an exercise of me receiving God's grace in it all as I attempted to do something that I've never really done before. You know, you know that this season has been a little different, right? Uh typically in the first two seasons, it was me and Allie doing it as a as a team. And this season, because of Allie going back into full-time education, changed things a little bit. And so, you know, we recorded some episodes in in the over the summer, but then I kind of was filling in the rest of the weeks with some new ideas. Sometimes it was a conversation with someone inside of our church or even someone outside of our church that I felt had something to teach us. And other times it was me doing a devotional by myself, and we even attempted an advent series for the first time. And so for me, this whole season has been an opportunity for me to, you know, really receive God's grace in it all and to trust that even when I made a mistake or could have done quote unquote better, that I could just be okay with where things landed and do my best and trust God with the rest. And I really, I mean, that's just all of life, right? I mean, anytime we are trying our hardest at something, whether that is parenting or a friendship or a work project or a podcast, we that's the best we can do is is own up when we we feel like maybe we've we've run short and and just try again the next day, right? I mean, that's the gift of of grace is we get to try again and again and again. And, you know, if for those of you who have been listening for three seasons, you know that we actually typically did a grace episode. In fact, we usually did two a season, you know, first half of the season, second half of the season. And what we would do is Allie and I would come on here and talk about some missteps that we had over that part of the season and own them and talk about where we got it wrong, and then in that what we learned from that. And so it was tempting, you know, this season to kind of skip over that because I, you know, was by myself. And to be fully transparent, there was a lot more editing going on, you know, in the past when it's two people talking, you know, it's difficult to edit well. And so, you know, a lot of times we didn't edit well when it's just me at the microphone attempting to do this, you know, I'll be honest, sometimes I did do some more heavy editing. So there weren't as many quote unquote errors, but that doesn't mean I didn't need grace. And that was what God kindly told me as I considered the rest of the schedule for the season. He kept bringing it to my attention that I had not done a grace episode in many different ways. And it was like, okay, well, what am I saying? Am I saying that I don't need grace? What's like, of course I do. I literally felt that every single episode. Talk about grace upon grace. Every episode felt like the wave of God's grace and me having to receive it and to trust in him. And so I'm gonna follow through and do a grace episode here, like we did traditionally, where I just pick two areas or episodes in which I feel like I could have done better and own that and um, you know, accept God's grace and share what it taught me. And so the first episode that I actually feel like there was an air was the episode with Alicia Kavanaugh. That was early, the first one actually of this calendar year in um 2026. It was the episode called Organizing the Chaos. It was episode 74. And, you know, in that episode, Alicia and I talked about, you know, kind of getting our act together, what it looks like to organize our lives and, you know, the grace in that, but also just some practical um tips for how we could do that in the new year. And in our conversation, I was speaking about the fact that God is a God of order, that he is intentional and that he, you know, there's seasons and you know, there's light and dark, and there's the sea and the land, and that he is a detail-oriented God. And then that being made in his image, you know, that we can also be that kind of person, right? That that is something that we also should pay attention to. And in our conversation, I said that, you know, God even named the animals. And as soon as I said it, I knew that was not accurate. And yet we were in the middle of conversation. I didn't know how to correct myself without interrupting the flow of the conversation and getting us off track. And so I let it be. But technically that is incorrect. Reading through the Bible and reading specifically in Genesis, it's clear that actually God allowed Adam to name the animals. And so I wanted to own that, and I also just wanted to read from the Bible the accurate description of the naming of the animals. Genesis two, eighteen through twenty says, Then the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. And so it's very clear in Scripture that actually God allowed Adam to name the animals and the creatures. And so I just wanted to correct myself there because it's been bugging me, to be honest with you, and I want to be accurate as possible. And, you know, you could let it go as like a minor like detail in the sense that God is, you know, still was the one who allowed Adam to name the animals, but the point is what I said was wrong. And so I just wanted to make that clarification. And the other episode, um, actually it was most episodes of this season, but specifically the one we just did on finding balance with Wendy Figel. I was a little bit disappointed with myself that somehow in our conversations in those interview episodes, I would leave scripture till the very end. It was almost like it seemed like an afterthought as opposed to like a grounding portion of our episode. Um, when Allie and I used to do our episodes, that we actually really built it around the scripture. Like we picked the scripture first and then saw what teaching would come out of that as opposed to, you know, doing it at the end. And I felt like although there was some time and thought and prayer and um even research that went into choosing those scriptures and even like talking through them and and how we wanted to position them in the episode, I still feel like I could have moved it up earlier in the episode to give it the um the attention it deserved. And specifically with Wendy, I even noticed it. Like in my mind, I thought that we had already said it, but we really hadn't until like almost the very end of the episode. And so that has just bothered me. And I think that that is just something that I was just working through as I was interviewing people because you know, a big part of this was the fact that when I'm interviewing someone new that you haven't met before, a lot of our top of the conversation is about who they are and how they're related to church and some of the some of the things about their background and their families. And so, whereas with Allie and I, you just knew who we were already. And so it just naturally was a longer episode. And although I still tried to keep it within a time frame, editing all of that and making it all fit, it just it just didn't quite go the same as it did with Allie and I. But I always wanted this podcast to be grounded literally in the truth of God and also in scripture. And that needed to be something I think that is something I think I could have done a little bit better. And in the future, I would love to do that a little bit better is make sure that um I don't fall into the trap of like, oh, what's your favorite Bible verse at the end? But instead um making it an integral part of our conversation. So those are my two humble offerings for today. But trust me, there are more. There are plenty more. But it really isn't the point. The mistakes aren't the point. Of course we want to be accurate, but really the goal had always been for these episodes to just be a model of grace, of what it looks like to be a believer who has the best of intentions, but to acknowledge that we're never gonna get it right and that no one is perfect, like no one, and that we all need God's grace, like constantly, right? We all need that beautiful gift that He gives us, which is the unending forgiveness and love and acceptance, no matter what we do. And so whether we're a mouthy preteen, you know, eating a muffin, or an exhausted mom, you know, doing her best, or whether you have a microphone, or whether you are quietly working hard behind a screen. And even if you're like a new believer or a woman who has been dedicated to the Lord for 40 years, we all need God's grace as much as we did that very first day we decided to believe that Jesus was exactly who we said he was. We all need grace and then we all need to accept that grace so that we can deeply root it in our hearts and then give it away to others. That is the whole point is to remind others of the grace of God that is available to not only to us, but to them as well. Grace upon grace, right? The good news is that the supply of God's grace is plentiful and that it never runs out. For from his fullness we all have received grace upon grace. Let's pray. Oh Heavenly Father, I sit here in awe of who you are, of your kindness, of your mercy, of your forgiveness, and yes, Lord, of your grace. And I'm aware I've said that word so many times in this episode, but what a great picture of the abundance of it all. That because of Jesus and because of the gift of what he did for us on the cross, we have an unendless supply of your grace available to us all of the time. And most of us sit here fully aware that we just mess up so often, sometimes intentionally and sometimes without meaning to, Lord. Sometimes we do it out of fear and in our own selfishness. Sometimes we are so stuck in our own world we don't even realize that we're hurting someone else. We forget how powerful and hurtful words can be. Let our emotions take over. Father Gabbit, you tell us in your word that even in those moments, especially in those moments, that we can come before the throne of grace, and you will meet us there with love, acceptance, and forgiveness. May we really, really realize how amazing that gift is. And may we be willing to then give that gift away to others in our lives. I think of the woman sitting there today with her head down, hearing this episode and feeling like they don't deserve it. And I pray that that this episode would then also be that reminder to her that yeah, that's how grace works. We don't deserve it, but you, Lord, you are so good and so kind and so loving that you give it to us anyway. What an amazing, amazing gift you have given us. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Okay, listeners, may we receive and give the grace of God this week. He alone is our solid ground.