Undeserved Grace

The church-going world of an insider that I had known for nineteen years was about to be over. There was an awareness that my choice and consequently, Satan-authored shame was about to cause me to be rejected by my church, friends and family and I was about to face isolation and heartbreak. I will never forget that night, looking up at the stained glass windows from the outside. It was foreshadowing of my life to come. Yet this was the first time I truly understood God’s grace. It was 1978 and I was in a situation where there was no easy way out. The world as I knew it was about to change. The gravity of the situation was more than I could handle. So in the dark of night, in my college town of Plainview, Texas, I sat alone in my car staring up at the beautiful backlit stained glass of a nearby church, pouring my heart out to God and receiving my first glimpse of God’s amazing grace.  He was there to cry out to when there was no one else. It is in moments like this that the veil becomes thinner and we get a better glimpse of God’s heart. 

The words to Better Than a Hallelujah by Amy Grant express this well.  

The woman holding on for life,

The dying man giving up the fight

Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes

The tears of shame for what's been done,

The silence when the words won't come

Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes.

We pour out our miseries

God just hears a melody

Beautiful the mess we are

The honest cries of breaking hearts

Are better than a Hallelujah.

Until you experience something out of your control, you cannot truly experience God’s grace. Up until that point in my young life, my choices did not slap me in the face with consequences. So I swept them under the rug and considered myself a pretty good person.  Grace cannot be experienced when you do not confront your own sinful nature. Grace is reserved for the humble and repentant and without this, I could not know this ultimate love from my Savior.  At this time I realized God is merciful and that I cannot deserve or earn his love. Nothing I could do could separate me from this mercy and nothing I can do will make me deserving of it. All He expects from me is to be truthful with myself and with him.

You see, God allowed consequences to plunge me into a world that was starkly different from anything I had ever known.  And it is those circumstances that forced me to see God in a much more personal way than before. Those hardships gave me perspective and depth. They gave me a promotion in life. They caused me to cling to my Father.  

But did God answer my cry for help? Yes, he abundantly answered my prayers but not in a way I expected. In the following years I experienced rejection, poverty, isolation and heartbreak. I was thin because I was hungry and not because I was on a diet. Every month I didn’t know how I was going to pay the bills. During this season, however, God gifted me with a passion for my new role in life as a mom.  He gave me a healthy baby girl, then another beautiful baby girl, a college education and a career, then guided me to a place where I was loved and accepted. There I met and married the love of my life and God continued to bless me with a son and so many good things, some of which  I never could have imagined.  And he did it over a long period of time. He did it in His time. There have been sorrows along this earthly road, and Lord knows, I am daily still learning, but looking back I realize the difficulties far outweighed the blessings of God's beautiful, amazing grace. 

Three Truths

Being a socially awkward, opinionated introvert that loves to talk has its drawbacks.  For example, if I know someone is 100% wrong, I will tell them in no uncertain terms that this is so, where someone who is not socially stunted would just let it go.  On my own power this is impossible for me.  Realizing this leads to many hours of regret, shame and frustration.  

Recently I  brought my shame, over analyzing, and lamenting to God.  He didn’t make me feel better...immediately.  I had to continue to go through the motions while in mental distress and depression.  Later in my day I was confronted with three truths that I believe God placed before me in the perfect order.  

The first truth was that shame is “me” focused while repentance is “God” focused.  I needed to wrench my vision away from how my sin affected my relationships with other people and realize how it affected my relationship with God.  That was the offense. I failed to listen to the Holy Spirit.  However this revelation still didn’t calm my mind.  It kept spinning thinking I would never get it right and this was all futile, feeling like for every step God took me forward, I made two steps back.  Frustration with my frailty was taking over my mind.  

This is when I heard the second truth. While absentmindedly listening to the radio preacher I heard him say that worry was a sin for Christians because it is saying all God’s promises and love are a lie.  In no uncertain terms, I am conveying to others and God and that God is a liar when I worry.   At this point I was convicted.  I was worrying and calling God a liar.  I asked Him to once again forgive me but got no relief from my gut wrenching turmoil, still feeling like a total screwup.

The radio sermon was followed by a promotion for a book that was titled, It’s OK Not to Be OK by Sheila Walsh. This simple title hit my heart.  I realized that I am a cracked jar of clay and that is ok.  It is the human condition and why I must rely on God. Immediately relief flooded my troubled mind.  I didn’t even have to read the book (but I will). My loving Father sent me exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it.  He is so good to me.  

Good Christian Frenemies

When there is a fire, we assume someone did something to start it.  When there is a natural disaster, we blame bad geographical choices, when there is a divorce, we blame one or both parties, when there is an accident we assume texting, falling asleep or drinking was involved.  When anything evil happens, we analyze, explain and blame.  I am an analyzer and I constantly catch myself doing this.  

“Where there is smoke, there is fire!”  This is my least favorite saying because sometimes there is just smoke.  Sometimes smoke is just pure, undeserved evil.  We live in a dangerous world full of it.  At several vulnerable points in my almost 60-year-old life, I found myself surrounded by miserable circumstances that were not of my own making, yet those around me assumed I was somehow to blame. This speculation coming from friends caused more misery than the circumstance that initiated it. And I repeat for emphasis: assumptions of friends separate and cause more pain than the painful life situation itself.  

This blame-game is as prevalent today as it was in the ancient times of Job.  Job had those friends. Job had three friends who came to visit him and sat in silence for a few days, then busted out with accusations of how he must have done something bad to deserve this tortured life.  Today we would call these three guys ‘frenemies’. I think this was yet another layer of Job’s torture.  Trying to straighten out these three clowns Job called friends was an exercise in futility.  If you have not experienced it yet, you will.  When things get tough, many good Christian frenemies point fingers.  

We are so indoctrinated with the idea of deservedness!  And by we, I mean the whole human race.  The mindset of deservedness is universal.  It sometimes goes by the name Karma.  We think somehow if we are good folks, good will happen to us and if we are evil, we get evil back in our face.  It is true that many times we reap what we sow. However, this assertion is not reversible!  If we encounter evil, it does not mean we have been evil.  If we are surrounded by good, it does not mean we are good.  Sometimes there is too much rain, poor soil, drought, disease, pests or even natural disasters out of our control and we do not reap what we sow. Sometimes marriages fall apart, kids are lost to addictions, loved ones die of cancer or good people are in the right place at the wrong time and suffer for the rest of their lives.  

Pardon my French, but maybe a kinder, gentler and honestly, more Christian point of view is “sh*t happens” instead of the “where there is smoke there is fire” phrase.  Maybe we need to quit analyzing evil and take it at face value.  This is incredibly scary because if we believe evil just happens and is not earned, then we are no longer in control.  This is a truth that is difficult to accept.  Yet should we chose this path, we will quit being frenemies and start being true friends.