Grace at the library . . .

We love our library here in Urbana. For example, they have a great kids department and they have a coffee counter, where they will put your coffee in a travel mug so you can carry it around the library with you. It's a great place to be. The parking lot is paid meters, so it usually costs a dollar or so each Tuesday that I take Liam for our little library time. This morning as I pulled into the lot I could see little red and green cards tied onto all the meters. When I got close enough to see the writing, I saw that it said, "Happy Holidays from the Urbana Free Library. From Thanskgiving Day until New Year's Day Parking is Free." You literally did not have to put change in the meters while you were parked in the lot. I sat in the car, as Liam worked on unbuckling his seat belt, thinking, "How can they get by not collecting money from the meters for 6 whole weeks? I mean do they plan ahead, like in their budget, so they can give out GRACE at the holidays?" And that got me wondering why the public library felt compelled to give out grace at the holdays. I mean we are using the "city's" parking lot. We owe them money for that, that's the rule. And then I got that great feeling inside that I always get when God is reminding me of how much He loves me. He gave me grace, when I really owed Him a debt. He paid the sin-debt for me in Jesus. Silly, that the free parking at the library can do that for me, but it did. It made me think about my great God all day. I so look forward to a whole Christmas season of being reminded even in the most unlikeliest of places of how much God loves me.