When You’re Down and Out, Desperate for Grace

It was a whisper of a prayer, the kind my daughter didn’t even hear, as I packed babies on hips and trudged my way, grudgingly into the grocery story again, on Monday.

It’s the same store I met the ninety-one year-old who taught me about marriage, saw a scarred woman, a blind man and first met my homeless friend, Steve.

My prayer was, “God be with us. Do what you want to do here today.”

I didn’t think anything of it, as I moved my two-year-old to a new cart, after trying to buckle her in a seatbelt that was broken.

Didn’t blink when I was training my three-year-old, to not run and dart off, but walk calmly, holding the cart, so we don’t look like a caravan, two carts full with a thousand groceries and two screaming little people.

I mananged to hold my list, written in paper and ink, the ol’ fashioned way, instead of thumbing for my phone and trying to scroll and check off each item electronically.

The thought zoomed past my mind, “Why is it a thousand a month to feed everybody, or this same pain-staking journey down the same isles to buy items I don’t like cooking, just to do dishes that continually keep stacking?”

Optimism was my momentary enemy.

The weight of a weekend filled with Bible studies and youth group, play dates and busy schedules ached for a little reprieve as I lugged my early-waking-morning-body up and down each isle, keeping track of my toddlers fingers, gripped safety to the cart.

Two strangers from our church run up and introduce themselves. They gaze both into the faces of my kids, as my daughters politely smile and introduce themselves back to this kind, eager couple.

And then, we finally make it through all the isles, up into check-out. It is there a grey-haired women with the blank-face of a shut-in, fumbles with her bank card for what felt like an hour.

Two people were before me. The cookies, a reward from the deli for my children’s good behavior were crumbling all over the floor, just as their bodies followed suit and I knew an eruption of some sorts was just about to ensue.

Finally, a manager got called over. I saw from a distance the blank-faced women peer in as the manager slowly and methodically explained what was happening.

The old lady’s bank card wasn’t working.

And how often had I taken on more than I could pay for? Had a debt that I didn’t have credit for? How many of all of us pile on what we think we can handle and then get to the moment of recogning and realizes we are carrying too much?

Aren’t loads easier to carry in theory? Aren’t they more comfortable to maintain in our own exaggerated idealism or thinking?

Our egos tends to lie to us, finding ourselves standing accountable to pay for things we can’t afford.

Only one paid a debt He didn’t deserve, to give us true freedom we never deserved.

Grace.

Oh how grace paved a way for us to carry more than we ought. Grace makes our yoke easy, our burdens light. Grace took the debt we owned and made it all exempt.

Who of us are not sinners saved simply by grace alone?

I scramble past the people in line before me. Toddler squirming out of my hands, another begging to be let loose from the buckle she has been trapped in, for what must have been an hour.

“Does she not have enough?” I whisper to the cashier lady as the manager keeps explaining to the elderly lady why her bank card isn’t working.

“No, she can’t pay”. The register recognizes the people in the lines frustration and starts moving to the next customer.

I remember grace in that moment. The times, two dozen years ago when my husband and I refused to go on welfare. I worked two jobs, had a new baby and he worked evenings, just so we could get by.

The days were scarce, sometimes our son eating, and us barely scavenging for what was left over.

I always paid with cash, so I could manage our money in little, paper envelopes.

But a few times? A few times I went to the store and didn’t calculate correctly on the old fashioned calculator I carried in our neighborhood grocery mart.

I remember standing at the cash registered, horrified that I had to put one or two things back.

It was then, I realized, all my striving would never be enough. I couldn’t pay my debt. I needed someone to come alongside and help because I wasn’t enough.

And there, in the store today, when age met youth, memories clashed with my own blessings over and over again…I had no other choice but to give.

See, I woke with this deep imprinting this morning, “Love…LOVE”! I didn’t know what it meant. I just knew when I woke, God was telling me that life was less about my own comfort or needs…

It’s less about what I want and feel…

Life is about LOVE. And often LOVE is tested by our giving.

“For God so LOVED the world, He GAVE His only son.” (John 3:16) The first Bible verse I ever learned.

Can we say we love if we aren’t giving? Can we profess such great faith and such violent resurrected things with our mouth while holding back what we have in our hands?

Can we say love without living love? Demand commandments without rising and doing what He has put in front of us?

I fail, daily, a million times over, in being and living the way Jesus would want me to. In fact, I kind of feel like we all fall sooo far short from the glory He has intended for us…

But what if we sat in our car…I sat more in my car daily…and asked God to use me in some small way, today, now, in this moment….right where I am, over and over again?

What if we stopped trying to save the world, and started being like our Savior, seeing the people before us…not waiting for someone else to rise up and do something?

What if we taught our children in the ways they should go (Without added sugar, might I suggest) and didn’t feel like it was a burden or some secondary calling?

What if we knew we were right exact where He wants us, when we rise up another and put our own wants, needs and finances on the back burner.

Don’t we trust, He will provide? Don’t we see, it is this moment in time He most wants to use? Don’t we trust God is bigger than our wildest dreams?

He has resources in heaven. He wants relationship with us and to help us meet our every need. He is faithful even when we are faithless. He is Lord, even when we don’t recognize or acknowledge Him.

I left that store in awe that God heard my prayer, “Use me today…in some small way.”

And what if we prayed always, “God use me.” When we woke, “God lead me.” And when we went out, “Let me be your hands and feet.”

Would people start seeing a gospel that rises in the face of poverty, need, sickness or lack? Faces down feeling light, so they can see their way…

Because I have been the lost. And God forgave me. And I will not forgot…

How desperate I too have been for grace, over and over again.

(Linking with Lyli today)