Unmerited Favor

Unmerited Favor is one of those "church" terms that sounds fancy but I don't know that I've ever really, truly, understood it.
Extravagant Grace is the title of a book I own (great book, little short devotional chapters from a variety of authors) but I have to say that other than a book title, it's not a concept I've really grasped.
Limitless Love, Boundless Gifts, etc, etc, all terms that we have used or heard used to describe God's feeling towards us, but for me personally, not something I've really ever had a good picture of, not something that I've experienced and thought, "ah ha, THIS is what it means.."  I mean of course I understand that while I was yet a sinner Christ died for me, etc, but to really own it... not really.

Until recently.

Have you ever been the recipient of a gift that you did nothing to earn or deserve?  Not something you could do for yourself?   Not something you will ever be in a position to repay?   Probably the closest I've ever come to this is the unconditional love I have for my children, but even that... yes, it is beautiful and a wonderful picture of God's love for us, etc. but it almost seems like it's cheating... it's built in, it is automatic, almost as though I can't help but love my children that deeply.  I didn't chose it, it just IS.

What I'm talking about is different.  Being offered a gift so ... extravagant, for lack of better word, being offered love that is so undeserved that it almost makes me feel odd to accept it, but knowing that to not accept it would be so incredibly foolish.  To know that if I take this gift, I can never repay it, never give the other party anything like it in return.  To know that nothing I've done, no service I've offered or friendship extended makes me "worthy" or deserving.  It's just there.  Given freely, no bond of blood or maternity, and all I have to do is say yes. If I say no, it is gone,  I can't do this for myself. The only way to benefit from this is to put aside my idea of needing to earn it, deserve it, or pay it back in some fashion, and simply accept it.

It is a humbling, almost scary thing to consider.

I know, you want to know what this gift is.  But that is not the purpose here, you see, what for me is The Gift that Makes the Gospel  Real, may be for you utterly commonplace.  The point is that for me, this is my need, my one thing that I utterly lack the power to do on my own. And someone else is doing it for me, freely.

To accept a gift that comes with no strings, no expectations, no preconceived notions, no way of earning or deserving, no way to merit this, no way to give it back, knowing that any feeble attempts to earn or pay it back will be futile; this is a difficult thing.

And yet I do accept. I take this free-fall into accepting a gift of love that is so big that it is almost overwhelming.  And as I accept, I feel like I'm seeing one of the most clear pictures of God's grace that I've ever seen.  I feel like I need to sit down and process this.  It is causing me to really look at my relationship with God.  Do I accept his gift of salvation for what it truly is, or am I still in some feeble way fooling myself into thinking that I can serve him enough to pay it back?  Am I as humbled and overwhelmed by the truth of the Gospel as I am about this gift from my human friends?
Lord, search my heart, know me.  And Thank You for loving me enough to not only give me salvation but to give me friends who serve me both physically and spiritually.

I'm getting it.
The unimaginable, unmerited grace of the Gospel, made real and brought home.
I'm overwhelmed.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

This has been on my mind so although it's a bit off my usual path, I'm going to talk about it today.

I'm talking about respecting men. Not respecting the man you already have, that is a whole different subject, but about choosing a man who you do respect.

I hear so many young ladies talking about their boyfriends in terms of, sweet, sensitive, soul-mate, no one else understands him,  we "get" each other, he "needs" me.  Girls, I'm going to give it to you straight: God will give you girlfriends to be sweet and sensitive. What you want to MARRY is a man who you look up to and respect.

Is he a provider? Is he self-sacrificing?  Here's the thing, you need a man who, even when you completely disagree with the decision he makes, you can truly respect and know that he's making the best decision he knows for his family.  What you need is a man who even when you don't like him (and yes, those days will happen) you still respect him and trust him.

I see so many young ladies who are dating "projects", not men.
 Ladies, healing the fragile, broken, psyche of that sweet, tormented boy is not your job, most especially if he is your boyfriend/fiance. Yes, I know that as wives we are to be helpmeets, but there is a large difference between being his helpmeet and mothering him.

  No man is perfect, we are all human and we all come with some kind of baggage.  The more dysfunctional families and society become, the more likely it will be that your choice of companion is someone who does have baggage, even significant hurt.  Can I say again that fixing the young man is not your job?  Let him be mentored by a man and learn to be a man, then later if you become his wife, you can be is safe place, his soft place to fall, his haven. What you can't be (or shouldn't be) is having to constantly stroke his ego and hold him up. 

I was recently talking with a newly-wed who was wondering if it was ok for her to  tell her in-laws to "stuff it (her words)."  I advised her that no matter how badly they treated her husband, and let's face it, there are many very dysfunctional families who really might need to be told to stuff it, SHE couldn't do it.  Not simply for the fact that it would be rude, but because her job is not to step in and protect her husband, but to stand by him. There are many ways that women can emasculate their men and one of the best (worst?) would be to go over his head and tell his parents to stop being mean. Yikes. What would be next? The wife calling and telling her husband's boss off?
The thing is, I would much rather try and get ladies to understand this before they are married.

Do you respect your boyfriend? Or maybe a better gauge would be, do other men respect him?
Does he make hard decisions and stick to them?
Is he selfish?  Does he want what he wants, when he wants it, or is he able to delay gratification (without whining about it?)
If he gets a traffic ticket  (or some other consequence) does he accept it or whine about it?
Does he brag about doing things and getting away with it?
Has he ever blown off work to go have a fun time with you or "the boys?" (this would be a huge red flag)
Is he respected at work? (Because I know you aren't considering dating or marrying a guy who isn't working.)

I know, I know, the tortured artist suffering soul is SO much more interesting than basic, boring, and stable guys, but what we are looking for here is RESPECT, not RESCUE.  I'm not blaming young ladies for this; we've been telling you for so long to "make sure you get a guy who respects you!" (and that is true too) but I honestly don't think I've ever heard anyone tell young ladies to make sure to pick a man who they can respect.  Don't focus so much on him respecting you that you end up with a broken boy who you can lead around instead of a mature man who can lead a home.

People change, people grow, people mature. This is a process and should be ongoing. You will change after marriage and so will he, but if the basic foundations aren't there, marriage is no place to try and get them established. 

Can a Mother Forget Her Baby?

This week has been filled with bits of news that have simply broken my mommy-heart. 

The young son of friends in Florida was in a freak household accident that resulted in gravely life-threatening skull fratures.  For many hours he was hanging by a thread between life and death, there has been a roller coaster ride of improvements and setbacks, and though we are trusting for it,  there is a long way to go for full recovery. 

I heard the heartbreaking news that the toddler of a friend in North Carolina has gone to be held in the arms Jesus, forever safe now in the hands that formed him.  He was born very ill and the fact that he lived until almost 3 years is amazing in itself.  Although I would never wish him away from the perfect life he now has, my heart aches and aches for my friends who are experiencing this loss.

Another friend is going through the valley of watching her child suffer extreme physical pain and knowing that there is really nothing she can do to ease it.  So many decsions to be made as the next two years of a long, slow, and painful recovery looms ahead. Oh how she longs to remove that pain and place it on herself!

Last night I got word that friends in Illinois who were joyfully anticipating the birth of their 4th child have gone from excitement to terror.  She is only 24 weeks along and for some reason, the baby is trying to come now.  Dialation, contractions, and water breaking; and now the moment by moment wait to see if all the powers of medicine can deny the body's urge to give birth has given way to the moment by moment wait to see what this tiny body can withstand here on the outside.

Dear Lord, what is going on?  All of these families love you and serve you.  Why do  these things happen to your people?    And what seems most unfair is that they are all children!

The thing I have learned since becoming a mother is that the one sure way to pierce the heart of a parent to to have harm done to their child.  Seeing your child hurt takes the reaction beyond mere sympathy or an emotional response and turns it quite literally into a gut-wrenching, physical pain.  

I can truly say that my understanding of love deepened a hundred-fold when I had children.  

I am not saying that the love for parents, for siblings, or even for spouse is somehow less, but it is certainly different. 

As a mother I can truly say that I would lay down my life for one of my children!

And yet, that is exactly what God did for us. How deep the Father's love for us!  God calls himself our father over and over in the scripture, for he truly is our leader and protector. He also  likens his love for us to that of a mother, nurturing, kind, and life-giving. 

 In Isaiah 49 God is telling the prophet how he will raise his people up. How he will feed them and guide then and how he has compassion on his afflicted ones.   The prophet replies and says that "The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me." 

To which God utters some of the most beautiful promises in scripture, Isaiah 49:15-16,"

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast 

   and have no compassion on the child she has borne? 

Though she may forget, 

   I will not forget you! 

16 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; 

   your walls are ever before me. 

Oh what comfort I find here!  As much as we humanly love our children and ache for them, the Lord's covering of love over us is even more, deeper, stronger, everlasting, eternal, and oh, how much more potent!  For though we parents long to take our childrens hurts onto us, though we would be willing to do anything to remove their pain, we are, in our human state, helpless to do very much at all.  Would it be wrong to say that the depth of our pain during these times can serve as a reminder of how much God cares as well?  

God is not bound by our frailties, we serve an amazing God, the one who spoke our entire universe into being is the same  one who wept at the loss of his friend (John 11:35).

The rest of Isaiah 49 talks about how the Lord will cause Kings and Queens to be foster parents and nurse-maids to our children when our own resources aren't enough. 

God will indeed prove himself and show us

"Then you will know that I am the LORD; 

   those who hope in me will not be disappointed.” Isaiah 49:23b

Again with the reality

warning: this ain't pretty.
So yesterday I got angry. Not just angry, but enraged, as in, given the opportunity, would have thrown someone down and beat them.  I guess I'm not supposed to admit that out loud am I?  In case it's not already obvious, the occasion had to do with one of my children.  Someone made cruel and heartless remarks about the special challenges that one of my children experience.  Momma Bear came out and she came out with no holds barred, all teeth sharpened, and the claws extended.

Thing is, the remarks didn't actually hurt my child. They hurt my feelings.  They cast aspersions on my mothering ability, they hit the deepest insecurities I have.

I've written about anger before and given the other side of the story, ie, that anger in itself isn't evil, rather it is a call to action.  My anger went beyond that.   There was the initial anger and then there was the seething, the feeling of helplessness for not being able to make the person(s) stand accountable for what they had said.  It bothered me the rest of the day. It kept me awake last night, wishing that I had a way to force the person to explain where they get off being so cruel  about a child who they've never met.

I lay there thinking of all the ways I could reply using cruel words myself in order to try and make them feel a fraction of my pain.  How could I hurt them so that they could understand how much they had hurt me?

And finally, in the recesses of my sleep deprived mind, I shut up long enough to allow the Lord to get a word in edgewise.  And suddenly there washed over a me a realization that I don't need to try and inflict pain on them to make them feel it.  The entire reason for their cruelty is likely that they have had pain inflicted upon them. Pain after pain, hatred after hatred poured out on them.  And just that fast, the anger was replaced with immense pity.
I know the amount of pain that I felt  and my desire to return it.  However, my desire to return it was focused solely on the offender.  How much more pain must they be feeling in order to want to inflict pain on anyone and everyone, deserving or not?  God let me glimpse for a moment how much a human soul can be crushed and broken to be so full of hurt that they spew out hurt indiscriminately.

There is so much hurt, so much brokenness, people's souls have been stomped so far down. And each time they spew out cruelty, it is returned with more cruelty, and before you know it, there is another person who isn't focusing their anger, they are just spraying it out like a water sprinkler.

There is of course a time and place for judgement and consequence, but in this situation, it was not my place to dispense either of these.  What ended up happening is that my rage stole an entire evening from me, I gave it place in my heart and mind and allowed it to rob me of rest.  Basically, I was very wrong.

Will I ever get to the place were my first reaction is pity and understanding?  I honestly don't know, but I do know that I have asked God to snap me back to my senses sooner next time; or perhaps I should say I've asked him to soften my heart so that I allow him to snap me back to my senses sooner next time.

And I don't want to lose that glimpse of the utter brokenness either.  I didn't like it, but my greatest desire is to see people through Jesus's eyes, and to grasp for a moment the unbearable pain  that must be fueling the cruelty, to feel the pity and compassion, to wish that instead of returning evil for evil that I could instead show them one drop of love, THAT is what I don't want to lose.