All Is Grace

: kind or forgiving treatment of someone who could be treated harshly

: kindness or help given to people who are in a very bad or desperate situation

: a good or lucky fact or situation

sometimes the things that happen in and around my life catch me completely off guard. i used to think the significantly good or horrifically bad things only happened to other people…but not to me. i heard stories of tragedy. loss. great joy. miracles. but…not where it related to me. it always happened to somebody else.

i gotta tell you, in the past few years, those things have happened much more often in my own life than i would like to admit.

thirteen years ago, nearly to the day, i had a miscarriage. my third pregnancy…considered totally normal (somewhere around 20% of confirmed pregnancies end in miscarriage…did you know that?). 100% devastating. it happened the day after my nephew was born while we visited in Florida. this took place just months after my friend’s baby was born with Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia and had the missing half of her diaphragm replaced with a Kevlar patch.

twelve years ago, my cousin’s son was born with a strange “disorder” involving a genetic mutation of which i had never heard…Apert Syndrome. within the next 10 months, two of my friends had sons with Downs Syndrome. and my own son had surgery for pyloric stenosis at a whopping month old–a condition which affects something like 2 out of every thousand births.

three years ago, i became a divorce statistic. that same fall, my great-aunt lost control of her car coming around a curve on a highway and died when she smashed into a tree. i drove past the accident coming the opposite direction and had no idea i was related to the person involved until much later.

a year and a half ago, i married a man with Cystic Fibrosis. you have a 1 in 35,000 chance of being born with that disease. and the median life expectancy as of 2013 is “early forties.” Joe is 36.

this fall, another friend’s baby was born with CDH. last Monday, Joe’s niece’s 22-year-old boyfriend was in a car accident where he flipped his truck and was ejected from the vehicle, causing massive brain injury. he died today.

on Friday, it was confirmed that my ex-husband will, in five months, be a convicted felon.

none of these incidents i mention has anything to do with the others, except that every one of them was either a tragedy when it occurred, or had some devastating effect on the people it involved–people who are intimately connected with my life (and no, my marriage to a man with CF wasn’t a tragedy or devastating at the time…but there are things we will face down the road which could be both). what i have discovered in the times i have personally gone through devastation is that i desperately relied on people’s mercy to get through.

i have not always shown mercy.

i have not always received mercy.

sometimes i have given judgement. criticism. anxiety. sometimes i have received it.

sometimes that judgment or criticism is found underneath what looks like mercy.  people don’t even realize they’re doing it (sometimes they do).

and you know what? i get it.

if you look up there at those definitions of mercy…one of them has to do with giving people the opposite of what they deserve (especially when they could deserve harsh treatment instead). the other is being kind to someone in a desperate situation. i have been in both of those positions. and have received mercy…and haven’t. but it is often in the most undeserving positions which i desperately need that mercy.

and those are so often the times I don’t receive it.

over the years, this has humbled me. i have felt the lack of mercy and it has caused me–forced me, even–to consider my response to people’s desperate situations. i am a critic by nature, so my tendency is to look down on the situation and observe what is black and white. what that person did was…not wise. a poor decision. they got what they deserved in my justice-seeking, black-and-white world. but in my Christ-following, mercy giving heart…i can sometimes look deeper. attempt to relate. dig for the mercy i have in me to forgive where needed. love where needed. give where needed. am i perfect at this? umm, i just admitted that my first reaction is often criticism. that is not Christ-like. i don’t get it right every time. but my goal is to err on the side of mercy. someone in college…probably Alistair Begg (and i choose him because of all of the chapel services I sat through in college, the ones at which he spoke are the only ones which stuck in my brain through the years…good grief, that’s kind of sad)–quoted Micah 6:8 and it has been something of my life verse since I heard it: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” I fail. I do. so often. but mercy is my goal.

so when someone else’s response…a fellow Christ-follower’s response…shows no mercy…i lack patience. i lack tact. i lack…mercy. it BREAKS me.

and when i’m on the receiving end of a fellow Christ-follower’s lack of mercy…well, you know what?

i’m calling bullcookies again. i’m calling hypocrisy. i’m considering calling it loudly from this point forward…though i’m not sure it will be warmly received. and i’m not sure it will have the desired effect (you know…future willingness to give mercy). i’m also not sure that quoting Micah 6:8 at said Christ-follower will be the most effective technique. but i’m tempted.

the thing is…when i call bullcookies…

…i have to call it on myself.

act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God. so easy to require someone else to act justly. or give mercy. so hard to give mercy when i’m angry or wronged. and where is the line between mercy and enabling wrong behavior?  and where is the line between giving mercy and calling someone out? into whose life can i breathe mercy this week? and how much mercy should i expect from the people who love me?

oy.