The Trouble With Grace

I really thought grace and I were getting along just fine.

But it turns out, grace makes me nervous sometimes.  She is just so wild and doesn’t expect anything in return and I don’t do well with that.

I’d really like to earn my grace, but I guess that would undermine its definition.

I was trying to give it some space, but the troubling reality of grace flooded me recently in the form of a tiny gift in my mailbox.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love gifts.  (That’s not the moral of my story, but it’s a solid takeaway.)

The gift wasn’t the problem…but I was concerned about the backstory to the gift.

Exhibit A): I told my friend I’d do something, and then I didn’t follow through.  Valid reason or not, I still felt like a jerk for letting someone down.  Whenever I disappoint someone, I feel like I owe them somehow.  I just need to do this one thing to make it right.  I just need to say this one right phrase, treat them to coffee, mend the hurt, make it all better.  I don’t know what kind of vigilante I think I am trying to prevent other people from ever being disappointed in me.  That’s crazy talk right there.

But that’s  how I think, and sometimes I feel like I’m supposed to be perfect.  I’d like to be perfect, because perfect people don’t need grace.  (I should realize by now that if I haven’t met a single perfect person yet, then maybe I should stop making it a goal.)

Just as I was stuffing aside my imperfections, grace was about to sneak up on me in my mailbox.  I wouldn’t normally check my mail early in the day, but I noticed the lid to our box was shut.  Normal people always have their mailbox lids shut, but ours is a bit warped so only Hulk-like effort can get that thing shut.  Our mailman must have come early.

Curious, I walked down our long driveway with my 4 year old trailing on his bicycle, and I popped the stubborn box open.

Inside was a gift with no note, but I knew at once that it was from the very friend that I felt like I’d failed.

I held that slight package in my hands, yet the weight on my heart was more than I expected.  “Why are you sad, Mommy?” my helmet clad preschooler asked in his sweet way.  How could I explain to him when I barely knew quite why I was tearing up myself?

But the more I thought about it, the more I knew it came down to grace.  Grace is the sweetest when we know we don’t deserve it.  And even though I probably felt worse about letting my friend down than she did, the timing of her gift to me was somehow more significant than something money could buy.  Here I felt like I owed her, and she responded by piling on more grace, as though to say, “You are OK.  And You don’t have to do anything more.  I don’t expect you to repay me.  Just breathe and enjoy this moment.”

She reminded me, really, of God’s grace to me.  His grace is so daily, so abundant, in the orange throated birds, and the strawberries growing in my garden.  His grace gives me life and breath, the gift of children and husband, and a million tiny graces that I miss everyday.  Yet I forget how holy He is and how far from perfect I am.  I forget about His grace…until I feel like I’ve let Him down.  Until I feel like I’ve made a mistake and I need to crawl my way back.

Then I turn around and His grace, His love, His forgiveness…it feels too lavish, a bit ridiculous.  And I want to tell God to wait just a minute while I pull myself back together and fix what I did wrong and…earn His grace back on my own.  Because I’ll feel a lot less guilty that way. Won’t I?

But God says, “You are OK.  You don’t have to do anything more for me to love you.  I don’t expect you to repay me. Just breathe and enjoy this moment.”

I want to find the delicate balance of expecting God’s grace everywhere, but still catching my breath in surprise at each new grace He gives.

May we find courage to walk in that abundant grace and let it propel us to love God and others more deeply still.

Lamentations 3:22-24: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”

Ephesians 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast.

1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.