Learning Grace

Losing someone you love is never easy. Losing someone with whom you've had a difficult relationship may be even harder. So many unanswered questions remain that way, and the potential for reconciliation is buried as far below the soil as the departed. And, while this could be one of those "Life's too short to stay at odds" messages, it is not. Some people, try as we might, refuse to simply play nice. We can be gracious, we can forgive, we can even forget; but until something changes about the way this person thinks and behaves, we cannot have a relationship.

I've been in such a place. Mere days before it was too late, I tried again to be nice. I tried again to serve in love. No go. This person wanted to punish me for things I had done years before, things I had done in response to something they had done, things I'd done as a youth, things I'd done when I wasn't serving the Lord. And as I left that hospital one last time, tears of anguish and frustration ran hot down my cheeks. Slamming the door of my truck, I wept and gasped for air. What had I done that was not forgivable? Why wasn't I worth forgiveness? Why, in their very last moments on earth, would they not release me from the burden I bore?

"When you finally learn a person's behavior has more to do with their own internal struggle than it ever did with you, you learn grace."

I saw this quote recently, and I just love it! Such freedom in these words. Our pastor is constantly reminding us, "It's not about me." Offense comes when we think it is about us. The guy who cut us off, the friend who didn't invite us. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe it was an oversight, or maybe it was something they were going through.

In my thirties I was in an awful marriage made even more awful by addiction. The stress took its toll on me in every way possible -- my health, my job, my parenting, my friendships. The ways I let people down are myriad. The deceitful things I did in the name of survival are an anathema to me. All I had to do was get out, but I was bound by shame and fear. I was engaged daily in a battle between doing what I knew was right or doing what I thought was the only thing possible. By God's grace, just before my fortieth birthday, something "clicked." I couldn't be responsible for the things my spouse did, but it was high time I started being responsible for mine. I went to counseling, I searched the Scriptures. Slowly the shame and fear retreated, and my internal struggle was laid at the feet of an Almighty God who loves me and forgives me infinitely. Grace. As much as I wanted my marriage to work, his internal struggle was not to be abandoned. Grace. I worked hard to restore some of the relationships I'd sacrificed during my marriage. Some folks understood and remain my friends today; others chose not to have a relationship with me. Grace. And it was only a few years later, I stood by that hospital bed praying, even for those last moments, I could have a relationship with one who had so completely rejected me. Grace. I needed it; I needed to give it.

When we bear in mind the commandments -- to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love others as we love our-self -- grace becomes a big piece of that pursuit. Seeking to love the Lord, thereby loving others in such a way that their treatment of us has no bearing on our gentleness toward them. Seeking to love the Lord, thereby loving others in such a way that we can pray for them, for their healing and their peace. And, while the relationship may never be what we desire, while the reconciliation may never come, we demonstrate grace. We remember it is not about us. And we embrace grace for ourselves. The grace to say, "I may not have always gotten it right, but I tried, and I pray, by God's grace, I added nothing to this person's burden, but bore it instead."