in need of grace...

Last week we got to hang out with two of our favorite people in the world, like grown-ups get to do sometimes. It had been too long since our last visit, and I was so looking forward to it. But the day before our big double date, I just started feeling like a giant GRUMP. You know the feeling. Blah. Yuck-o. Just wanna curl up and eat chocolate ice cream in my big comfy chair. That feeling that I should know so well by now, the one that signals something about to start soon (AHEM), but for some reason I still get surprised by it, like it hasn't happened every month since I was 13, excepting only the blessed relief that pregnancy & nursing provides...

Anyhow, there I was. Out with two of our favorites. And all I wanted to do was go to sleep, and be alone.... Now of course, being the ridiculous southern girl that I am, I still was determined to keep up appearances, and not be a flake, because it had been too long since we had seen our dear ones, and if I missed the opportunity, it would be even longer before another visit. So I went. I think I was probably a lump. I've blocked out most of it (as I do most times I'm in moods like that), but I remember a story! A lovely story that has stuck with me all week, that won't let go:

J & S had just returned from a mission to New York City, where they got to work with dear, dear Tom B. and his ministry to the homeless. At one point, they were at a park (or something like that), handing out free food - soup and things like that, as well as canned goods. J was in charge of the canned goods. 2 cans per person. So that the line doesn't back up, J is randomly handing out cans, and not taking requests. A woman wants something specific, not what she's been given, and starts digging for what she wants. J kindly says, "Sorry, no can do...", and she THROWS the cans back at him, or at the box, or somewhere, the emphasis being on the throwing. And J says that right then, right there, he was reminded of grace.

Grace isn't about kindness toward the lovely...it's about kindness toward the unlovely. Toward the ones who throw FREE cans of food back in your face. About Christ, loving me, even when I throw cans (or goodness, or kindness, or blessing, or whatever He's lavishing upon me) right back in His face, and walk away in a huff. J put it much more eloquently than I can here, but it was a great reminder for me, to not scorn grace, and to remember that I need to be one who will generously heap grace on those I encounter, even those who might throw it back in my face.

So I'm glad for the reminder. That our dear ones deal with me even when I do little more than make Chewbacca noises, that their door will continue to be open. That the Savior continues to lavish grace, day after day, even when I can't see it for what it is.