Grace

Me and the ladies in the bible study I go to are reading "Hiding From Love" by Dr. John Townsend. There was something in the reading that really applied to how I've viewed good things vs. bad things in my life and how I've thought about myself. I thought I'd share it. Perhaps it will encourage someone else.

From page 98-99:

For a minute, think of a person with whom you feel very free in your life. This person may be undisciplined. He or she have a lot of problems. But there is one sure thing: you know this person loves you, good and bad. You feel forgiven; your badness doesn't make your friend nervous, critical, or withdrawing. It's just apart of the attachment. For all that person's weaknesses, he or she has chosen the "good part" that Mary did: to love you. (If we have to err on one side or another, God grant us grace to err on the side of love.)

I'll never forget the clearest example in my life of this principle. I went through college in the South in the early seventies. Like some of my friends, I'd grown a pretty lengthy head of hair, for various reasons: peer relationships, rebelliousness, experimenting w/adult decision-making, and so forth.

Back then, the South wasn't particularly fond of long-haired kids. Though I'm sure I asked for it, I was hurt by the reactions of some people.

One weekend home from college I paid a visit to my grandmother, who lived in a tiny rural town. Granny was petite, not much over five feet tall and in her seventies. She wasn't well-educated by today's standards. She'd farmed all her life. She'd raised six children. Granny was culturally the opposite of the open-minded, issue-sensitive adult.

After a few minutes in her home, Granny motioned to me. "Come outside, come outside," she commanded. Perplexed, I followed her into the front yard, where she had me stand still. Then, looking up at me, she smiled and said, "I just wanted to see your hair in the sunlight. The color comes out so pretty in the sunlight."

I can remember crying all the way back on my drive to the campus. A part of me that had brought me a lot of pain had been cherished by someone. Something that had been broken in me began healing.

That's what grace is about: not being afraid of imperfect things in ourselves or others, because of the relationship of grace to imperfection: there is always more grace than badness. As the Bible says, grace can - if we let it - always triumph over sin or evil: "And the Law came in that the transgression might increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more" (Romans 5:20). If imperfection is a large landmass in our lives, grace is an ocean that can swallow it up. Badness will never compete with grace. It's not in the same league.

I am that perfectionist that can't see any good in myself. I just see the bad. Therefore it's hard to see God's grace. You know how you know something in your head but it doesn't quite connect to your every day life and mind? This helped me to connect a little more.

So I wrote in my journal, "I pray that all of my failures, my shortcomings, my 'should's' would be swallowed up in the ocean of Your grace - that you cherish ME."