Grace

She’d been in bed for half an hour, chatting and singing and dancing and hosting the usual evening soiree she has every night with her baby dolls.  I’d hugged him good-night, told him to sleep well, reminded him we’d be up early for his sixth grade Bible study in the morning, and sent him off to bed as well.  There were no more emails to answer or phone calls to make.  The laundry was going and the dishwasher set to run. 


With the duties of the day complete, I sat down in the leather chair with my laptop and invited the puppy up to snuggle beside me.  (I know you’ve just fallen out of your own chair at the thought of OCD me allowing a dog on the furniture, but just so we’re clear, it’s the only piece of furniture she’s allowed on, it’s leather so I can easily clean it, and there is a huge blanket covering the seat so she’s not even really touching it.  I know.  What can I say – it happened when I was recovering from my surgery last year and needed her warmth while watching hours on end of HGTV, and you know what they say about teaching an old dog new tricks?  That saying is spot on, my friends, and it’s been her chair ever since). 


I opened Ann Voskamp’s blog, attempted to make sense of the prose turned poetry she pours daily into my soul.  Sometimes, I think she’s writing to me, though I know it isn’t true.  Her words, in all their backwards, reversed order beauty, offer exactly the reminders I shouldn’t need, but do.

Her post that night was about kids and fame and the insatiable need for attention epidemic that’s currently sweeping our land, and how funny, I thought.  I just wrote a little something about that myself.  I need to meet this woman one day.  I think we’d be fast friends.

I didn’t hear anything unusual upstairs.  He was going to the bathroom, brushing his teeth.  Doing the things he always does when I send him up to bed each night – stalling tactics, if I’m honest, because he never spends that much time on his teeth in the mornings.  

It drifted down slowly, floating around me like a cloud.  It took me a second to realize what it was, and when I did, the words on the screen in front of me blurred into nothing.  I breathed in, deep and long and full, and the weight of it all lifted right off my heart.  

The tears spilled over, the screen now just a mass of swirling colors as I took another breath, drawing it in, allowing it to fill the emptiness.

He had sprayed his cologne.  He had sprayed it again, finally, after days and weeks that seemed so heavy with the guilt of my mistake, and I know it’s ridiculous to read anything into an eleven-year-old boy putting cologne on.  I know he hasn’t forgotten and neither have I.  


Still.   


That scent . . . .


It smelled like forgiveness to me. 

Forgiveness is not my strong suit.  When someone hurts my feelings, it takes me a while to get over it.  I’ve heard dozens of people talk about the importance of married couples resolving issues before going to sleep at night.  “Don’t let the sun go down on your anger,” is the common statement, right?

WRONG.

If my husband ticks me off at six o’clock in the evening, there is no way I’m snuggling up with him at ten o’clock that night.  Eventually, I will forgive him, and most of the time he won’t even have to apologize, but I need at least a few hours to stew first.  And depending on the infraction, I might never forget.

Forgiveness doesn’t come easily for me.  It can be even tougher when I need to forgive myself.

A wise woman once told me I needed to move from a life of guilt to a life of grace.  Guilt to grace.  It does sound lovely, doesn’t it?   Of course, the concept of grace makes me think of one thing.  Yep, grab those palm branches folks - here we go with that Jesus fellow again! 

There are many definitions of ‘grace.’  Mercy or pardon.  Divine love and protection bestowed freely on people.  An excellence or power granted by God.  The state of being protected or sanctified.  Immunity or exemption; a reprieve. 

Ephesians 2: 4-5 says: God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved . . .

I once heard grace described in this simplistic, yet achingly beautiful way:  Mercy is not receiving that which we deserve.  Grace is receiving that which we do not deserve.

I do not deserve grace.  I do not deserve to be forgiven.  I’m like that child who apologizes over and over again for hitting his little brother – looks that little fella right in the eyes and says he’s sorry – then turns around and belts him again when he thinks no one is looking.   I confess my sins to God, I pray for his forgiveness, and then, even though I KNOW he’s looking, I turn around and commit the same sins all over again.  Greed, envy, idolatry, pride, lust (have you seen that Calvin Klein cologne ad with Matthew McConaughey in the Nordstrom at . . . never mind). 

Still, God forgives me.  He forgives me for everything I’ve ever done or said or imagined that wasn’t good or glorifying to Him.  He forgives me for all those things I’m going to do or say or imagine in the future that aren’t good or glorifying to Him.  I don’t have to feel guilty about my millions of past or future mistakes.  They are forgiven.  My debt has been paid.  I can live in freedom because of the grace God freely gives.

Yet, most of the time, I choose not to. 

I choose to ignore grace.  I choose to live in guilt instead.  I beat myself up and toss myself out and despise myself because I am . . . human.

I feel guilty because I went out to dinner with a friend and didn’t get to read to my daughter.  I feel guilty because I had a prior commitment and missed my son’s first goal in lacrosse.  I feel guilty because I complain to my husband about the problems with our house instead of expressing gratitude for having one.  I feel guilty because I don’t spend enough time with my extended family. 

What a slap in the face to the Lord of all.  He sent his son to become my salvation, and I fail to acknowledge it in my life at the times it matters most?  

Jesus gave his back to those who beat him, his cheeks to those who tore out his beard, his face he did not hide from insults and spitting (Isaiah 50:6) to secure my forgiveness.  Jesus, died on the cross, showing me the full extent of his love (John 13:1) to secure my forgiveness.  And in his last moments on earth, as he hung on the cross to secure my forgiveness, Jesus did just what I must do.  He went directly to the source of forgiveness, and he asked for it. 

“Father, forgive them . . .” Luke 23:34

Father, forgive them.

And Father, please forgive me. 

The last time I wrote about our puppy, I should have promised it would be the final time.  I didn’t, and here we go again.  Of course, the last time I wrote about our puppy, she had just ventured back from the brink of death.  Dramatic, I know, but very much true. 
 
Today, though alive and well, Macie’s days are no less numbered, mainly because her newest trick involves barking her head off at the deer behind our house EVERY SINGLE TIME SHE SEES ONE.  Friends, the autobahn for deer is two hundred feet out my back door. I don’t know where they’re heading, but apparently, every deer in the metro Atlanta area has to walk through my backyard to get there.  What this means for me is every time I sit down at the kitchen table to enjoy a few minutes of quiet and a warm cup of decaf with enough vanilla creamer to make it taste like desssert, my lovely reprieve from the busyness of life is broken by the sound of an ear-piercing bark from a twenty pound dog who wants to tackle a hundred pound deer. Needless to say, several of my robes now have coffee stains down the front of them, and I almost fell off a chair while changing a lightbulb last week.

Despite Macie’s obvious desire to be featured on Craig’s List, she remains a permanent fixture in my nightmares home.  And between the frequent episodes of incessant barking, she continues to teach me.

Macie is fully aware she is not allowed to chew on the dining room rug.  If a human is within her line of sight, she will stroll into the dining room, lie down calmly on the rug, and pretend to be preparing herself for a nap.  When Macie thinks no one is looking, however, she’ll race right into that dining room and take a big ole' bite.  Of course, our brilliant little puppy hasn’t yet realized there is more than one entrance to the dining room and I can sneak up behind her and see exactly what’s she’s up to at any time and just what kind of fool does she think I am anyway?  I am ALWAYS looking. 

The fascinating thing about dogs is they are more like humans than we’d like to admit.  Macie knows the rules.  She simply breaks them anyway.  

Hmmm.  Sound like anyone you know?  I’d like to say it sounds like my nine-year-old son and my seven-year-old daughter, and frankly, it often does.  You know who else it sounds like? 

Me.

I know the difference between right and wrong.  I choose wrong anyway.  I know the difference between judging and empathizing.  I judge anyway.  I know the difference between serving others and serving myself.  I serve myself anyway.  I know the difference between coveting and loving.  I covet anyway.  I know the difference between God’s way and my way.  And still, over and over and over again . . . I do it my way.  I should be taking a nap, and instead, I’m gnawing on the damn rug.

Like Macie, I know the rules.  I know what I’m supposed to do – with my time, with my talents, with my treasures.  I simply choose to do what I want to do instead, and many times, there is a big difference. 

I’d like to blame it on Satan.  He was the pesky apple pusher, wasn’t he?   I’d like to blame it on Adam and Eve.  They ate the forbidden apple, right?  We are fallen because they fell.  But really, I shouldn’t blame anyone.  Instead, I should express thanks.  I should drop to my knees, grateful and appreciative and forever indebted, because no matter how many times I break the rules . . . no matter how many times I make the wrong choice . . . no matter how many times I do what I want to do instead of what I know I should do, He forgives me.  

Personally, I’m not the best at forgiveness.  I remember.  I stew.  I dwell.  Most of all, I harbor unrealistic expectations.  I believe I will only have to forgive once, because how in the world could anyone who has sinned against me have the nerve to do it again. 

Oh. 

But wait. 

We sin.  That’s what we do. 

We know the rules.  We break them anyway.  Day after day, month after month, year after year, generation after generation.  And because He forgave, so must we.  Not just once, but every time.  Everyone. 

Even if it means giving a belly rub to the puppy who barks like a maniac at the deer . . . and then eats your dining room rug.

Matthew 6:14  For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

I recognized the emotion instantly, but it didn’t signal the typical dropping of shoulders and continuation of breath.  Instead, it coursed through my veins like a poison, making me twist in shame at my own ugliness.

There were other emotions mixed in.  Deep sadness.  Grave concern.  An intense desire to do something that might help.  Still, the most intense feeling wasn’t despair or worry or the need to assist.  My strongest emotion was the worst one imaginable.  It was relief.

Relief.

A mother announces to the world that her child has cancer.  The child is about the same age as my oldest child.  The relief was overwhelming.  It disgusts me to recall the way it poured over and into and through me like a wave.  I can feel the bile rise in the back of my throat as I’m reminded just how flawed I truly am.

I know the mother of this child with cancer, not well, but we would likely hug one another if we happened to be in the same place at the same time.   We would chat about our lives and our kids and our plans.  Three months ago, those plans involved tennis lessons and swim meets and summer vacations.  Today, my plans remain unchanged.  For the other mother, nothing is the same.  She’s no longer filling out camp applications and buying endless amounts of sunscreen for the hot, humid weeks ahead.  Today, that mother’s world revolves around chemotherapy and impossible decisions and life-changing surgery.

From an outsider’s perspective, I can almost understand why this family has been chosen to walk such a difficult road.  They are shining lights in a dim world.  They are amazing examples of what it means to believe in God, to lean on Christ, to spread the truth.  I have no doubt this family’s story will make a positive impact for months and years and generations to come.  Of course, I imagine this family can’t see things from my perspective. They are staggering through this deep, treacherous valley, while I stand securely on top of a hill.

When the announcement came, I wept.  I wept for the ten-year-old child whose world had been shattered into a million unknown pieces.  I wept for her father and her little brothers and sister.  I wept for other children like her who, at this very moment, are experiencing fear and pain and grief no child should ever know.  Most of all, I wept for her mother, who would have to try and pick up the pieces of a life drastically altered, and slowly put them back together in some way that might make sense.    

I’ve prayed for the ten-year-old child.  I’ve prayed for her father and her siblings.  I’ve prayed for healing and health and comfort and encouragement for the months and years of adjustment that lie ahead.  I’ve prayed this child and her family will never have to walk through such a terrifying valley again.  Most of all, I’ve prayed for the child’s mother.  I’ve prayed that one day, when the chemotherapy is over and the surgery is long past, she will wake up one morning and find peace restored in her heart . . .  and she will see the transformed dreams as a perfect plan meant to be fulfilled from the very beginning.  

And after I pray each day for this precious family in the midst of this dreadful battle, I pray for forgiveness.  I pray that God will take my damaged soul and turn it into something good . . . something not so broken . . . something more like Him.  I pray that God will help me become a person who isn’t so selfish, who doesn’t always think of herself first, who loves others as He did. I pray that the next time I hear of a child suffering, the first thing I think won’t be, thank God it’s not my child.

Acts 3:19 "Repent therefore and return, that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord;