Grace, God, & Poop

GRACE, GOD AND POOP

Sometimes God sends us signs through the most bizarre and unexpected situations.

Like sending a message via a patient (who knows nothing about you or your life) making a single, extraordinarily random statement about a book while you are literally wiping his poo butt. A statement that causes you to leave the room in full body chills as tears stream down your face at the unbelievable and yet gentle lesson God is showing you.

For the last several months, the word grace has continually popped in my head or appeared to me as I hear songs, read all the things and in my studies. As the last year has been mentally one of the hardest battles of my life, I struggle daily with not just trying to survive but trying (and failing) to move forward with “grace”. I have struggled with learning all the things about myself that need to be corrected, continually screwing up despite trying to improve, and facing the ugly that reaches back at me from the girl in the mirror. It’s hard to deny the negative when it seemingly outweighs any positives. In a quote from my favorite movie: “it’s easier to believe the bad stuff, have you ever noticed that?”

Yes Vivian, it is, especially when you believe there’s so much more bad than there is good.

I have prayed often this year for “grace”. I have begged and pleaded for answers or relief. I have asked God to allow others to have grace for me as I try to correct my wrongs, search for wisdom, recover, try to change and grow to become a better human. I have asked for grace from God (His answer to this is below.) I have asked to know grace for myself, from myself. But humans aren’t God and more often than not, when we are wronged, we naturally act out with anger, malice, resentment, bitterness and the need to hurt them more than we are hurt or prove to them how bad they failed. Grace for ourselves is often the epitome of impossible as we are naturally our own worst enemy.

However, as I clean the poo, my patient makes the statement “I read a book once called GRACE and it was probably my favorite book by Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer.” One random sentence out of nowhere. I actually had him repeat the title to make sure I heard him correctly. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Suddenly everything came crashing down and within a few seconds inside my mind God painted a beautiful complete picture of the message He has been sending me all this time. In my prayers, I was mistakenly using the term “grace” when truthfully, I meant for God to just take away some of the pain, hardship or struggle. I was praying for it to “go away” so I could just feel halfway decent for a while. “God, please give me a little grace.” “God, please send a little grace my way even though I don’t deserve it.” “God, a little grace today would help if you could spare it, I’m really struggling.”

With every internal or external thought about how horrible I’ve made life, how awful I am or how much I’ve messed up, how big I’ve messed up, how imperfect I am, I would pray for a little grace as I’m seriously trying to not just run to Alaska and live with the bears for the foreseeable future.

Instead of “fixing it” as my human heart desired, He has slowly and consistently been showing me through my own negative thoughts and poor reactions, as well as others behaviors toward me (both positive and negative), how I SHOULD behave and how to become the person HE desires for me to be (coincidentally a separate prayer I’ve prayed for the last 7 months). By him allowing others to show their rage, bitterness, hatred and shame for me (all justified) to come out and be expressed, and by them not “showing me grace”, it allowed me to come to the realization of what God has been trying so fervently to make me see. The lesson is not for me to learn about God’s grace FOR myself, it’s not about what I can get or receive from Him or people. That hasn’t been the point at all.

The purpose of life is not what we can get for ourselves.

The purpose of our lives is to simply share God’s love to others and bring them to Him. Period.

He has been showing me through all these heartaches and downfalls what I should be doing and how I should treat others tenderly and gracefully in future encounters with those whom He places in my path that need God’s love. He is preparing me. God has already given me all the grace I need when He died on the cross for me.

God’s grace is often defined as “undeserved favor”. I can tell you; I don’t deserve His favor, His love or His forgiveness. No human does. However, He has offered it lovingly to us through his own birth, life on earth and brutal death. As undeserving as I am of all He has offered to me, my prayer moving forward is not that He would provide even more to me or that I should receive it from those around me, my prayer will not be for me at all… but that He would build in me the STRENGTH to not withhold grace from anyone else, especially in times when they need it the most. If someone else is facing battles I don’t understand or agree with, or if they make mistakes (even repeated ones), if someone isn’t perfect or my version of it, if someone doesn’t act, feel or think how I think is acceptable, may I always remember the numerous ways I have failed Christ and yet He never withholds his love and GRACE from me.

I will strive to watch my tongue or hold my tongue completely if I can’t act or react how Christ would. I should be slow to anger, withhold my bitterness, my self-righteousness, and my defensiveness. Instead, I will try to offer grace, softly and tenderly as Christ has done for me. Instead of judging or acting harshly towards others, I pray I can act lovingly, even when I disagree with them or if they hurt me (intentionally or unintentionally). I won’t always succeed, but we are not called to be perfect, we are simply called to strive to be like Christ.

Thank you, God, for taking time out of your day to show me such a beautiful lesson amidst all the crap and for giving me a smile.

1 Corinthians 11:1: "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ"

Ephesians 2:8-9

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast".

Titus 2:11

"For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to ALL people".

Psalms 145:8-17

"The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love".

Much Love and High Tide,

-A-