Wrestling with grace

Here we are again playing tug of war.

Your intentions aren’t for me but you,

Who is keeping score?

Another ploy to mold and manipulate, you win again.

I’m trying so hard not to add this one to the heap out back near the trash

It’s trickling food

For my resentment in the alley

“You can’t get mad at me if I don’t do what you want”

Somehow this child has more backbone than me,

Is my freedom more crucial

Than your supposed misery?

From where I stand it doesn’t look so bad

Hard, yes, but the pit of despair?

It’s not fair

And yet I’m here most months of the year

Where I pitched my tent under the bus

Should I lay across this pothole again so your tires don’t pop?

Shamed if I do, shamed if I don’t,

What does it matter?

But then,

I remember.

“How many times?” I ask

“Have I kept count?” He replied.

“Has my grace run out?”

And just like that my sin is magnified and His grace displayed

And I’m sure it’s written all over my face,

But I remember.

I was one that lined the streets, mocking and screaming “crucify!”, While my Hope walked by, dragging His cross up the hill.

I was the one that provided the hammer that would drive the nails into His hands, I was the one that wove together the thorny strands that carved His scars upon His crown, I was the one that beat Him and spat on Him, who painted the earth with His blood, just as I too was the one who looked the other way.

I remember what I’ve been forgiven from,

I remember the places I’ve been in sin,

I remember the depths of despair where there was no air and my necklace was a noose and they called it pretty, sinking in the sand with my hand outstretched toward loose branches that were uprooted as I touched them, I remember being pleasantly sedated in daylight by a lie that I was fine but at night I remember I was hunched over in the bathroom, heaving emesis, doors locked, my fears a mess on the floor and no one to come in and mop them, I remember the weight was so great that I couldn’t go another day without Him.

Something

had

to

give,

and

He

gave

me

grace.

And now, somehow, I’m saved and free

Which also means, free to forgive. Free to suffer joyfully. Free to give grace simply because I have received it.

Free to sit in the midst of the mess with others, to wait out the wind battering His temple, knowing that the God of grace and glory sits on His throne already.