Stubborn Grace

Hey. I'm Gemma. Anara's aunt and owner of Nellie's Bakery.

Thought I would share some things on my mind.

I've been thinking about stubbornness lately. Funny thing about working in a bakery—you get time to think while your hands stay busy with dough and timers.

Anara was fussing over a batch of loaves that were taking too long to rise. She kept opening the oven door, checking and rechecking, as if her worry could hurry things along.

"They'll rise when they're ready," I told her, but she gave me that look—the one that says she's heard it before and doesn't quite believe it applies to her situation.

That's when it hit me. We're all a little like that stubborn dough sometimes. Fighting the process. Resisting the very thing that's meant to help us grow.

The other day, Anara told me everything felt overwhelming. The bakery, the past, Morgan, all of it tangled up in knots she couldn't unravel. I wanted to fix it for her, but you can't fix a person's heart the way you fix a broken recipe.

"I don't know why God would want me back here," she said. "I've made such a mess of things."

I kept kneading the bread dough in front of me. "You know," I said, "I used to think God's timing was terrible. When James died before we could marry, I decided God either didn't care or didn't know what He was doing."

She stopped what she was doing.

"I spent years telling God exactly how He should fix my life. The more I insisted on my way, the more miserable I got."

"So what changed?" Anara had asked me.

"I got tired. Tired of fighting. So I stopped trying to manage God and started trusting Him instead," I told her.

"But how do you know the difference between trusting and just giving up?"

That question's been working in my heart ever since. Trusting isn't resignation. It's like kneading bread—you work with the dough, but you don't force it. You create the right conditions and then you wait.

People get funny about the word grace these days, like it's too churchy. But grace is everywhere if you know how to look. Morning light through the bakery windows. The perfect rise on bread. Rain on the roof when you're safe inside. Even tears—most of them are grace too.

Somebody loving you when you're at your worst? That's grace. Being able to love someone else, even when they're prickly? Pure grace. The thing about grace is, you can't earn it. Anara keeps trying to prove she deserves to be here, deserves happiness. But that's like trying to earn the taste of strawberries. Some things just are.

God's grace doesn't give up on stubborn people. It just keeps working, persistent and patient, like that faithful friend who never stops believing in you.

When I see Anara wrestling with whether she belongs here, whether she's worthy of good things, I want to tell her: There's nothing you have to do to earn this love. Nothing to prove. It's like God saying, "Here's your life. You might never have been, but you are, and I'm glad for it."

Your past doesn't disqualify you from His plans. Your stubborn heart—the same one that keeps you up worrying—is the same heart He's been pursuing all along.

The only catch? You have to be willing to reach out and take it. To stop clenching your fists around guilt long enough to receive what's being offered.

Maybe that's the real grace. Not that God smooths out all our rough edges before He uses us, but that He works with us exactly as we are. Stubborn, scared, and all.

Just like bread dough. It doesn't have to be perfect to rise. It just has to be willing to be worked with.

Why does Anara think she made a mess of things? And what is she referring to?

Find out by purchasing The Rancher's Heart by clicking on the cover below.