Grace

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about grace.  Its been an interesting week, full of changes as the kids start school.  And I’ve been exhausted, trying to process my time in Kampung (rural village) for Christmas and trying to plan a coherent English curriculum.  In the midst of everything going on in my head, I have made some considerable mistakes.   But in all of the moments I feel inadequate, my family here has showed me inordinate amounts of grace, showing me perhaps God’s hardest gift for me to receive.

So many little things go astray on a daily basis, mostly due to miscommunication.  And we’ve learned to laugh and move on, mutually improving our control of each other’s language.  But this week, for some reason, the mishaps on my part seemed unsurpassable.

On Thursday night, after singing pop songs with the kids for an hour and a half in English class, I was feeling mildly ignored during the evening exercise/play break.   So I figured it was probably best to go home and rest, instead of being crabby at Jireh Home.  On my walk home, I sent a text message to what was very obviously the wrong person – one of my friends on staff who had been pretty moody.  As I realized the error, I freaked out, but came up with an honest and polite explanation hoping to pacify things until we could talk Friday morning.  

The next morning, instead of things being strained and awkward as I expected, my friend told me why she was so moody and so many other things in her life she had been thinking about.  Instead of creating unnecessary tension, I received the most incredible grace, complete forgiveness and understanding and a deeper friendship.   And I had done absolutely nothing to deserve that, except make a mistake.

This past Saturday, we had some local visitors scheduled to come around 2 pm.  So the boys drifted over from their house across the street to the patio area where we gather around 2:30.  At maybe 3:15 some of the younger girls were sick of playing cards (speed has been the biggest hit here lately), and started running around the house.  So I decided we were going to play games.  In the midst of playing freeze tag I stepped in some dog poop in the yard from one of the many neighborhood dogs.   If it had been any of the kids who stepped in dog poop, we would still be laughing at them today.  But instead, the small group of boys around me pretended not to notice while I put my gross sandals by the door in the corner.  Realizing my embarrassment, they gracefully pretended the smell wasn’t my fault when we gathered on the patio for the visitors. 

Then, Sunday morning, I missed church.  That may not sound like a huge deal, but here, if you are a Christian, you go to church on Sunday.   And I didn’t wake up in time on Sunday morning, because I set the alarm on my iPod for the wrong day.   To make matters worse, I had talked all of the girls and my good friends on staff into wearing dresses to church, because I really wanted to wear mine.  So here I was, at 8 am on Sunday morning, sitting on my bed in despair as the church service started in town, which would take about 30 minutes to get to.   And I realized I was feeling pretty sick.  As Uncle Pat would say, “Double Whammy.”

So I spent the day in bed, mostly sleeping all afternoon.  I expected to wake up to a couple of unhappy text messages from my friends.   But I didn’t get any passive or sarcastic texts from my friends.  Instead, when Pastor came home to shower, she took me into town to dinner and bought me whatever food I would like.  Then we went to Jireh Home for extra fellowship where everyone was just relieved to see me.  I was preparing to wear my dress on Monday to make up for the absence, or to promise the kids I would wear it next week all by myself.  Or do something to somehow repay my friends for the mistake of setting the wrong alarm.  Instead, I was greeted with smiles, hugs and excitement to dress up again next week. I did nothing to earn the affection, but simply received the grace of my family as I snuggled with one of the smaller girls during fellowship. 

Grace upon grace.  As much as I participate in Jireh Home’s receiving, I still have no idea what it means to simply open my hands and heart and receive simple forgiveness and grace from my family here.  And I am learning to raise my hands and receive the best gift ever, responding only with constant gratitude.