Emily Freeman is a writer, a listener, and a window-starer-outer. She writes at Chatting at the Sky and takes great delight in creating a place for a woman’s soul to breathe. She is a regular contributor for (in)courage, DaySpring’s online home for women and her first book, Grace for the Good Girl, releases in September. Emily and her husband have three young children and live in North Carolina with their crazy dog, Finn.

*****

It took me 23 years of living before I realized I didn’t know how. My grace journey happened slow, over time. But I was also fairly intentional in my search for it, pursing and learning and hunting it down. I was certain it was all too good to be true. I just needed proof.

As it turns out, grace found me at the YMCA. It was the summer before The Man proposed, the days before the after. I spent the afternoons at the Y, reading book after book about grace on my lounge chair in the corner. When you immerse yourself in something, you start to see it everywhere, like the time several years later when I wanted to have a baby, suddenly every woman on earth was pregnant. It was the same way with grace that year. Everywhere I looked, there she was.

I watched as a small, even-tanned girl played on the side of the pool in the sun. And her little feet were tucked tight beneath her, just enough to give her something to sit on, but not so much that I couldn’t see her toes. Pink polish, chipped. Her hair was matted so you couldn’t tell if it was curly or straight, but who had time to care? She was too busy playing hand-clap games with her playmate, chanting together their rhyming songs in loud, high-pitched voices. Giggles and splashes and playful teasing framed the scene like a movie. Those girls know how to live, I thought.

And I glanced to my left and saw their mothers sitting on their chairs, dryer than hay. They chatted in their polite, measured ways, managing to dodge the repeated pleas of their girls to come in for a swim. They dared not wet their hair. They had to go to the grocery after.

It hit me hard in that moment, the beauty and freedom of a grace-filled life. We cannot control it, manage it, force it, or tame it. All we can do is enjoy it. Grace holds hands with childlike faith and together they bask in the love of God.

Everywhere I looked, there {grace} was. And it all started, with Emily’s 31 Days of Grace last October.  I am so grateful for that push into the deep waters of Grace.  Emily is by far one of my favorite blogger writer girls, and I can’t wait to read her book.  I found out recently that we grew up about 20 minutes from each other, while I was living at 29lincolnavenue. How fun is that? Do you long for a place to catch your breath?  Click here to visit Chatting at the Sky, and be abundantly blessed!