The Giving Keys

Last November, I was looking for a key necklace (as I've always secretly wanted one and I had some spare money). And then I found The Giving Keys. It's a website with quite a beautiful idea. In a nutshell, you get a necklace with a word on it. You wear that word around your neck. You grow into that word and embrace it. That word becomes tattooed upon your heart. And when the time comes, Jesus puts someone on your radar to give it to and to pass it along to: the best friend you've known for years, a child of God whom you've never seen walking on the street. Whomever. In God's time, you pass it along.

I loved the idea and immediately got one for myself that said "loved." Good Good Father had become my anthem during that season and I wanted nothing more than to be reminded that I was loved by Him.

Three days after I'd gotten the necklace, I got to see a friend who had just gotten out of a rehab-like facility, and who was about to go back. As we had lunch and caught up, the Holy Spirit tugged on my heartstrings. I could see right past her fake smile and laughter. I could see the brokenness in her eyes. I wanted her to know too, that she was loved. In seconds, the necklace came off my neck and was on hers. I haven't been allowed to talk to her since, but I pray that "loved" becomes her identity and becomes written on her soul.

On my birthday this weekend, I was watching a sermon by Louie Giglio. He mentioned The Giving Keys. How it was a picture of the Gospel. God touches your shattered world and you're wearing the reality of what He's done. At some point, it's time to give that possibility to someone else. God had freely given me unconditional love. I wore that as a reminder around my neck. Yet God's assignment to me on that day was to then freely give what I had been given. To remind someone else what her true name was.

After that sermon, I got myself another Giving Key. This one says "GRACE". I lived years and years feeling unworthy of grace, rejecting the cross and holding on to shame because "I wasn't worthy of it." Thankfully God has broken that off, and now I choose to believe that I am worthy of grace, although it is a daily choice and daily surrender.

On the night of my birthday however, after being celebrated by people who mean the world to me, and receiving countless tear jerking messages, I began to cry because I didn't think I was worthy of so much grace. I compared my life just 6 months ago to what it is now. Why had God poured out so much grace over my life? I didn't deserve it. Lyrics came to my mind: "There's nothing too dirty that you can't make worthy." Truth is, alone I am not worthy on my own. But Jesus is. And He died to make me worthy. He died to make US worthy. Worthy of abundant life and freedom and a continual flood of grace poured out over our lives.

As I wear this key, I am excited to be reminded of this message. Grace has always been my middle name; now it's time to continue to live that out. And at some point (hopefully more than three days from now :P ), I am excited to remind someone else that they are worthy of God's continual flood and overabundance of grace.