Five Minute Friday: Grace

On Fridays we gather to write about one word for 5 minutes . . .

Ready . . . set . . . write. . .

I remember sitting in a room with two other people. Two of us had failed. We had failed each other. We had failed those we loved. We had failed God. We had failed. The third person in the room who could have been harsh and exacting, showed grace. He met us with love and grace and instead of punishing or making us feel like failures, he showed us grace. He encouraged us. He gave us hope.

He said, "Give this time and one day perhaps you will be an example of God's grace." I clung to those hope giving words and I learned a great lesson of what it meant to have grace extended to me. That human extension of grace gave me a greater understanding of what God's grace is like . . . a gift we don't deserve, but that He gives anyway.

As the old hymn says, "wonderful, marvelous, matchless grace, freely bestowed on all who believe . . . "

Stop.

Day 1: His Eyes

When I saw the pain in his eyes, I repented and prayed to change.

I was in my early teens and waiting at our local public school for my ride to the Christian school I attended in a nearby city. Several of us waited each morning and often our public school friends would come to visit us.

On this particular morning, one of my friends, a young man on whom I'd had a crush since I was 5, had come to visit. I had been peeved with him over a now unremembered offense and had given him the cold shoulder. When he came to me to ask what was wrong, I looked into his big, vivid blue eyes and I saw hurt, deep hurt. His eyes haunted me throughout that day.

That evening alone in my bedroom I realized that I had hurt more than this boy I admired. He was one of God's children and when I hurt one of God's children, I hurt God too.

God . . . my heavenly Father, the Creator of the universe, who had given me the right to call him Papa. Jesus who was beaten, mocked, and crucified because of my sin . . . my sin. I had hurt a brother in Christ, deliberately, out of my own pettiness. Christ had died for this sin . . . even this, what would seem to be, small sin in the grand scheme of sins.

Superimposed over the hurt in this boy's eyes, I saw the hurt in Jesus' eyes when I sin, when I do wrong, when I hurt another person.

My heart broke as I understood the depth of my sin and what my sin had done to the Jesus I love. I begged God to never allow me to hurt Him like that again. I walked in the knowledge of the weight of my sin (big or small) after that. I knew of God's forgiveness, although it would be years before I grasped the wonderful immensity of God's forgiveness, grace, and love toward me that could completely cover every one of my sins.