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My interest was immediately peeked when I heard the name of a scent that a company called Philosophy had in their line of perfume fragrances.  I wondered if they had bitten off more than they could chew by attempting to attach an aroma to such a name.  The Christmas season of 2005 was in full swing and I knew instantly who it was that could not have received a more appropriate gift than something officially known as “Amazing Grace”. When I first took note of its special significance to Mother was when she had decided that a good use of her time would be attempting to teach a couple of pre-adolescent kids to sing in three-part harmony with her.  Dad left his pastorate for the mission field leaving her responsible for loading my brother and me in the car to travel for hours on end to meet up with him across the country.  We would touch base once in a while with a school house then hit the road.  She would tell the story later of how badly she had missed the trio she sang in while pastoring so she decided the three of us could improvise, but first we needed a lesson in “harmonizing 101”.    I knew it was one of her favorite songs because I recognized it from the countless times the sound of her voice filled the house as she played the piano and sang it out.   “His grace is sufficient for me His love is abundant and free What joy fills my soul Just to know oh just to know That His grace is sufficient for me” It became a song to cut our teeth on as we learned to blend.  But to her it was so much more.   I vividly remember being baffled by the lyrics.  “What exactly does that mean?”  I asked myself.  I have since learned all to well that its definition is one that has to be experienced to fully understand.  Little did I know how well acquainted I would become with His sufficient grace.   Many years later Mother and I were logging miles together for a totally different reason.  Her breast cancer had spread to her lungs and we had spent years exhausting all of our medical options.  We found ourselves seeking out a variety of treatment centers and attempting to give them all a fair shot.  It was my turn to drive. It wasn’t my first time around the block.  I had been taking an ongoing course in the sufficiency of His grace for years.  I was sadly mistaken when I thought the trial of my life was surviving high school.  I had been the Pentecostal girl in the jean skirt that couldn’t go to movies.  Being the butt of the jokes and eating lunch alone had forced me to begin my private exploration of grace.  Then I continued to live up to my reputation when I married into the ministry.  It was 1982 when my husband and I were pastoring a church in Elkins, Arkansas and he went to California for a three week revival, but never returned.  He left me with an eight month old baby girl and a stunned congregation.   My road had taken an unexpected turn but I never walked a mile alone.  Mother kept a constant vigil at my ear, humming a song to remind me that His grace was sufficient.   Fourteen years and much sorrow later, I turned a corner in my life when I married David Walker with a full understanding of the grace of God. In 1999 Mother and I had begun a new journey together, one that would teach us an entirely new meaning to the very thing that had carried us so far.  “We” were now in the fight of her life but her faith never wavered.   A couple of years into the battle I began to lose my grip.  I would never have hinted to her, but I was having those “what if” thoughts.  The only thing we spoke of between us would be of the victory we could see ahead.  But in my heart, I was scared.   I will fall short of using the word “tormented”, but it is probably a good description of what my emotions were experiencing.  I had never faced a crisis without her and now she was my crisis.  The medical community had begun to have a more somber tone in their voice as the test results began to slowly decline.  I was looking off in the not-so-distant future and seeing something coming toward me that was making a valiant effort to swallow me up in fear.   My mind would race with out-of-control thoughts of how any of us could possibly make it without her.  What would happen to Dad?  Who would keep us connected as a family?  What would become of Christmas? Easter weekend of 2000 rolled around and I slipped into bed Good Friday night.  Sometime before dawn I was taken by surprise as I felt the presence of the Lord so sweetly fill the room and supernaturally bathed me in peace.  I did not receive a word of knowledge.  I couldn’t tell you the day or time of her healing.  I could not tell you her healing was even coming.  All I knew that morning was that God was still God.  He had everything under control and it was all going to be alright.  I had a total understanding in those pre-daylight moments that His grace really was sufficient.  That’s when I wrote this song. . . “I don’t know the future but I do know His grace Of some things I’m unsure but in all things I will praise The one who will keep me ‘til we meet face to face Because I don’t know the future but I do know His grace"

Her last few months of life were particularly hard.  But it was her last few days in February of 2003 when I would find myself tapping into a dimension of grace that I had never realized existed.   In her final hours a medical staff member stood in the kitchen doorway of my home and carefully suggested that there was obviously some sort of unfinished business.  “I’ve never seen someone struggle to this degree in the dying process”.  She said, then she asked,  “Has everyone in the family told her that it’s okay for her to go?”  “Everyone but me,” I replied.  She kindly explained how important it was for me to go to her bedside and tell her it was okay to die.  I kindly explained how it wasn’t going to happen.  I had been Mother’s partner in faith.  I had determined in my heart that she was not going to die thinking I had given up.  Instead I nestled my face close to her ear and said, “Mother, everything is going to be okay.”  And it was.    While in Nashville last fall my sister had told me about some gold sparkling butterflies that had been made into napkin rings that she had seen.  We all recognized the butterfly as something special as it was Mother's favorite.  She had collected them for years. On my way out of town I ran to the near-by Mall where they were and picked them up for my sister for Christmas.  I would later find matching placemats and napkins, then arranged them in a gift box that would bare her name for our Christmas holiday.  Out of pure self-need, I picked up a bottle of that perfume “Amazing Grace” and wrapped it with my daughter, Kimmy’s name on the tag.  When the festivities finally arrived I watched Shanda with anticipation when she opened the lid knowing she would never have guessed the gift I had pulled off for her.  Suddenly everyone in the room paused in silence at her reaction.  First there was a look of shock, then to our surprise she cupped her face in her hands and began to weep. We all looked at each other wondering what was wrong.  Then her husband broke the silence from across the room and asked, “Is it the butterflies you wanted to buy your Mom?”  She nodded her head and tearfully explained how her first thought when she saw them was how much Mother would have loved them. She had wished in her heart that she could have bought them for her for Christmas.  At that moment I realized that I wasn’t the only one who had gotten a whiff of “Amazing Grace”. . . in more ways than one. “When my life is over when my work here is done I will turn to look behind me to see from where I have come Then I’ll know I fought the good fight and that I finished my race But for no other reason except by His grace I don’t know the future but I do know His grace. . .”