This past year had in it both the bad and the good, both the sorrowful and the happy. I still see shortcomings and failures in my own personality that make me sad, and which I confess to my Lord. I also see good things that He accomplished in me and through me. I do not believe that we are saved by the good in our life outweighing the bad. We are saved by grace, pure and simple, unearned and generous. The Lord of Grace will walk with me into my future with His undiminishing love; it never wanes and it never fails. I am at peace with that; I embrace His astonishing grace.
O Astonishing Grace
O astonishing grace,
That the reprobate race
Should be so reconciled!
What a wonder of wonders that God is a child!
Our Immanuel came,
The whole world to redeem,
And incarnated show’d
That man may again be united to God!
To this heavenly prize
By faith let us rise,
To His image ascend;
Apprehended of God, let us God apprehend.
–Charles Wesley, Hymns for the Nativity of our Lord, 1745
