Posts Tagged ‘Grace’
the gifts
Relax, everything’s going to be all right; rest, everything’s coming together; open your hearts, love is on the way!
- Jude 2
On this eve of 2010, as I sit with Jason and tend to Jude (who happens to be aching with new teeth and a scratchy throat), I can’t help thinking about the gifts given to me in 2009.
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Because grace makes beauty out of everything.
“Grace,” U2
I was driving down Franklin Road today, my mind caught in a garble of thoughts and contemplations. With just a week to go until we release As Is, my first book, my brain is jam-packed with to-dos, should-haves, and general excitement.
On top of that, throw in the hormones and queasy stomach of this 25-week-pregnant woman who had just come from taking the dreaded glucose tolerance test (pregnant ladies, you understand). And for the cherry on top, let’s add three loads of laundry staring me in the face back at home.
You can bet I was not in my finest form as I unknowingly sped down the rolling lanes a few miles from my home. In fact, I was scowling, feeling the wrinkle between my eyebrows grow deeper with each overwhelming thought.
And that’s where I was, racing down Tennessee byways and mental highways, when I saw the man in the orange sweatpants. If you’re regularly in the Franklin area, you may have seen him. In addition to eye-catching clothes, this older man – probably 60-something – dons a set of old school Walkman headphones and literally dances down the side of the road as he walks.
I slowed down to get a closer look. Then I laughed. Not at him. But at the beauty. At his fluidity and freedom. At the absolute dignity of this spunky little man.
With the memory of his movements still lingering in my mind, I laughed again and suddenly realized I had just encountered grace. This unexpected, unformulated, unplanned moment had found me, me in all my undeserved-ness.
I‘ve just started reading Cathleen Falsani’s brilliant book, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace. In the first few pages she says, “Life is beautiful. And I’m an idiot who doesn’t deserve any of it. But that’s the thing about grace.”
Those words hit me hard as I slowed to a stoplight half a mile from the dancing man. And it got me thinking about the other graces and beauties I miss. So I started remembering.
Grace has tenderly touched my belly countless times as baby Jude performs his own fetal dance inside my womb.
Grace knelt beside me as I took the Eucharist yesterday, remembering forgiveness and life.
Grace listened in on a good phone call with a friend a couple days ago.
Grace smiled as my midwife hugged me and told me to call anytime with any questions at all, even if I had just called the day before.
Grace whispered truth to me again and again in a week filled with false accusations.
Grace put her arms around my husband and me as we talked late last evening.
Grace even shushed my racing mind and brushed her fingers through my hair while I slept through the night for the first time in weeks (a grand feat for any pregnant woman, I might add).
Yep, grace has been there in so many moments. In all my moments to be exact. And I’ve been an idiot, too blind to see her. But she has been there. And that’s the thing. Maybe the most important thing. She is always there. The bonus is when I stop my madness to get a whiff of her perfume as she enters the room. Or when I shut my own voice off long enough to hear her sing and sigh. Or when I finally look up to see her dancing down the side of the road in her bright orange sweatpants and Walkman headphones.
1 Commentjourney graces
Forty-eight hours ago, I stepped off a cramped plane and inhaled the thick Nashville air. Jason and I had spent the previous two weeks traipsing around various European cities and, in Dorothy red-shoe-clicking fashion, I whispered, “There’s no place like home” while lugging travel-worn Vera Bradley carry-ons on my shoulder.
While there were wonderful highlights on this trip, I am the first to admit (with Jason a close second) that I am not the most gracious world traveler. In fact, it doesn’t take much for me to turn into the ugly American, griping about everything from substandard toilets to poor customer service to insane driving to the way people mow you down on the sidewalks.
But rather than throw an entire hemisphere under the bus, I would prefer to spend these few minutes telling you about the extensive graces gifted to me on this journey. Unearned, un-asked-for, unexpected trifles that, when added together, made for a treasure that defined our voyage.
One of those graces came at 1:30 a.m. the night Jason and I flew into Tallinn, Estonia. Our best efforts to plan for transportation hit a kink when our flight to this Eastern European country was delayed by some two hours. We had contacted our hotel about possible taxi service and shuttles, but were still up in the air on how we would get from A to B. And now it was late.
Jason and I clomped our jetlagged legs from plane to customs, doing our damnedest to smile at the scowling agents behind glass windows and look like the perky pictures in our passports. We lumbered to baggage claim where we met our beat-up bags with great relief. Then, as we dragged our hundred-and-some-odd pounds of possessions behind us, we scanned the roadway for available taxis. A crick in my neck made me twist my head and, when I opened my eyes, a little Estonian angel stood before me.
“Jason!” I shouted, “That’s you!” As I pointed, we both made eye contact with the short man holding a sign reading, JASON BARMER.
“That’s me!” Jason repeated, to which our scruffy angel briskly grabbed the roller suitcase from my hand and said, “Follow me.”
We would soon discover these were two of four words our driver knew, the other two being, “No problem.”
Close your eyes, put out your hands: grace, in the form of a vertically challenged Eastern European shuttle driver at 1:30 in the morning.
Another pretty package came the morning I woke up without a voice. Most days, this wouldn’t be such a big deal. I could actually use a day or two where I don’t have to hear my own voice. But this particular day was the day I was singing and leading worship at our friends’ church in Kuressaare. It was about 30 minutes into my silent temper tantrum when the front desk unexpectedly called to tell me I had a massage appointment in 10 minutes.
The 60-minute massage with my non-English-speaking masseuse was one of the best ever, followed by a sauna session where I sweat out more toxins and began to feel my voice come back. After a delightful lunch, a gallon of peppermint herbal tea, and an extended time of prayer with our friends, I picked up a borrowed guitar and sang better and more passionately than I ever have for this charming group of Estonians. (The next day, I really did lose my voice. I’m still working on getting it back.)
Surprise! Grace, in the form of deep acupressure, herbal beverages, friends holding your hand and music.
Smaller, but no less significant graces came, too.
Izzy licking my face
Jason holding my hand
Sleep whenever it would come
Licorice throat lozenges
Chocolate of the darkest sort with ginger essence
Jasmine in the Westminster garden
A pretty pink hat when my hairspray ran out
An empty seat next to us on two flights
St. Mary Abbott’s Church on Kensington High Street
Hyde Park
Randy the flight attendant bringing me hot tea the entire seven-hour trip home
Journey graces are the only thing that got me through the whirlwind two weeks away from quietness, away from familiar comforts, away from clean toilets. But again I say it was a good trip. The trip of a lifetime with our dearest friends and family. A trip we’d take over again.
But sometimes journeys – even exciting, hopeful journeys – are hard. It’s grace that makes them good.
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