Ephesians 2:8-9 - For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Ephesians 3:14-19 - For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith--that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:18 (ICB) - And I pray that you and all God's holy people will have the power to understand the greatness of Christ's love. I pray that you can understand how wide and how long and how high and how deep that love is.
Dear God, It is amazing that we can do NOTHING to earn Your love or grace or mercy yet You FREELY give it to us anyway. While the world has a distorted view of this. Tom and hai church displayed to me through what they did that grace either doesn't exist, that they don't truly understand grace, or that grace has to be earned somehow. And I think maybe that is where they have gone wrong. They place a lot of emphasis to people about being in small groups yet they took away the right for me to do that very thing. Then they guilted me over something that they did wrong with regard to it. When they found out about the autism, they punished me for it by taking away my rights to be a part of the body - you can't do this activity because you have autism and this might happen and then this might happen and this is what we think because supposedly autism is like this. Yet the thing is they were misinformed. They didn't bother to consider me or what I was capable of. They assumed that somehow the autism made me less capable. So yes, in a sense I gave up because they gave up on me and they excluded me. I will only put forth the amount of effort that one requires in some cases and when people don't expect much from me for some reason and don't give me the chance to grow and to do and to thrive, I won't try as hard. When they punished me for having autism, I quit trying. Because I figured that no matter how hard I try, it wouldn't matter anyway. Because I had already experienced that with that "team." While I had been trying, they only kept holding me back. So I quit trying. Thankfully God, You haven't given up on me, but now I am not ready because the one thing I know I need to do and the one place I know I need to be, well, it's in Your hands and You have to work on softening their hearts and preparing them for me. They have to be willing to sit down with me and listen to me and receive input from me. They have to be willing to listen without judgment. They have to open their eyes, their ears, and their hearts to listen to me and to work with me. Thank You God, that Your love and grace is not contingent on what I do or how hard I try. In Jesus' Name, Amen!
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