A Sermon — On the topic of grace without mentioning the word.

“On Our Best Behavior”       Sunday June 16                           Luke 7:36-50

Behavior matters.  Attitude matters.  Taking some initiative matters.  And I don’t just mean that these things matter in life.  I mean that they matter as Christians.  Behavior, attitude, and initiative shape our human lives, and also are shaping the church and its future.

Jesus goes to visit the home of Simon the Pharisee and an odd thing happens.  A woman comes into the dinner setting and weeps over Jesus’ feet and then wipes them and pours perfume on them.  Now, in Middle Eastern culture, it was normal to treat a guest in your home with great magnitude.  Their culture of hospitality was highly refined.  Jesus might even have reasonably expected the Pharisee or his servants to wash His feet when He entered the home.  That was the norm in their culture.

So here is Jesus, possibly feeling disrespected, when this woman shows up and wipes His feet with her hair and pours perfume on Him to refresh Him after His walk through this desert environment.  Behavior matters.  The Pharisee may have invited Jesus over and said all the right thing, but His behavior was less than stellar.  Attitude matters.  The household of the Pharisee may have revolved around an attitude of superiority.  Taking some initiative matters.  This woman came forth to take care of Jesus when no one else had.  Now, the text here says that the woman was known locally to have lived a sinful life.  There’s a real and meaningful dichotomy here, a break, . . . and we should look at it for its meanings.

To unpack the meaning, Jesus told a tiny parable.  Suppose there are two people who owe money to a moneylender.  One person has a much bigger debt than the other and neither has a chance of paying Him back.  When the money lender forgives both debts, Jesus asks the Pharisee, which of the two men will love Him more?

The answer is obvious, and the Pharisee gives it:  The one for whom a greater debt was forgiven.

The analogy is that this sinful woman, who has been forgiven much, will love God more than most people.  I would add that the reason for her great love of God is not merely because she realizes how sinful she was, but more because she, because of how great her need has been, most fully realizes how great and thorough and absolute God’s love is.

Let me make a clear point here:  Scripture is not mostly about us.  We often make the mistake that it is because we want it to be.  We want a guide for how we should live.  And Scripture can help us with that, so we focus on that aspect of it.  But the real truth is that Scripture is primarily and most importantly about God, and how He expresses Himself and shows His nature to us.  And the key idea of Scripture is that God shows Himself to us so that we might act and think in a way closer to how He acts and thinks.

And that’s what shows through this reading.  The parable shows that God forgives and that this forgiveness is a great and powerful tool to turn people’s lives around.  But who in the story shows a love for another like the love God shows in forgiving sin?  The woman throws herself into the act of showing love to Jesus.  She holds nothing back.  Even in the company of the Pharisee and his household, and their guests, she got down at Jesus’ feet and wept and sought to show Him compassion and love.

When Simon is made to see this point, He has nothing to say.  The guests in his household say who is this to forgive sins?  But do you notice how they twist Jesus’ words?  Jesus doesn’t say “I forgive your sins.”  He says, “Your sins are forgiven.”  What this means is “all sins are forgiven.”  But the Pharisee and his guests miss this important point.  Why do they miss it?

Attitude.  Lack of initiative.  They are self satisfied.  They are not curious and lack initiative because they think they already have all the answers.  They lack the initiative to examine their faith and their religion and themselves.  What they are forgetting is that faith is not mostly about them, it’s about God.  It’s about an abiding trust in who God is and how God will act.  What the Bible attempts to do is give us foundational reasons for that trust.  Faith is not about us.  The Bible is not about us.  What is happening in faith is about God reaching us right where we live, right where we struggle.  Behavior matters because it shows our character and our intent and our needs.  This woman who wiped Jesus’ feet had a need for forgiveness, and Jesus, as one with God, understood her need.   She showed her intent through actions.  And Jesus told her that her needs had been met in God, . . . indeed, all needs are met in God.

Now I have stated some mighty important truths in this sermon.  Write them down.  Behavior matters.  Attitude matters. Initiative matters.  And the Bible isn’t primarily about us and our ways, but more about God and His.  That’s a lot to take in from one sermon.  But let me also move on.  There’s more.

I’m writing this to myself, for myself, because I no longer have a congregation.  Sometimes I wish I still did.  Other times, the idea of having a congregation again after nearly three years away scares me to death.  Deep down, I really don’t believe it will ever happen.

I am wounded.  I would say “walking wounded,” except that sometimes, emotionally, I am not walking.  I am barely creeping some of the time, and there are times that I am not moving at all.  I learned about two years ago that I have a condition called Avoidant Personality Disorder, which in essence means I often consider myself to be socially inept or personally unappealing and that I may avoid social interaction for fear of being ridiculed, humiliated, rejected, or disliked.  It is a condition that leads to a lot of anxiety.  I am also dealing with being bipolar and having PTSD and ADD.  Being bipolar creates anxiety and so does having PTSD.  So there’s a lot of anxiety in me.  In general, there’s a lot going on in my head, and sometimes it’s just overwhelming.  I thought I had been dealing with simple depression all my life only to find out that it’s more a case of bipolar disorder and anxiety, which is more complex and harder to deal with.

That’s the psychological definition.  What I feel happening in my life is that I don’t connect to other people easily.  And I have had many, many people tell me this is true as well.  And I also lack confidence about most everything where I am concerned.

About three years ago, all this built up in me to the point that I had a series of anxiety attacks that took me out of my work in the pastoral ministry.  Even before that, I was asking people in the Methodist hierarchy for help figuring out what to do when congregations would tell me I didn’t seem connected or some other wording of the same idea.  Since then, I have been looking for help from therapists and psychologists.  I have taken numerous medications, aimed at the ADD or at the depression or at the anxiety or at the bipolar condition.  None of that has been much help at all, I’m sad to say.

So I am going to take stock for a minute here.  Have I exhibited wrong behaviors?  Oh sure.  I’ve been frustrated, and seemed angry.  I’ve been hurt and got defensive.  I’ve cried out for compassion, and not shown as much as I was looking for.  All that.  But, in my defense, I have also exhibited some laudable behaviors.  I have visited the sick, and visited in homes, and led missions to help the less fortunate.  I have taught the Bible and helped people in their faiths.

Have I had a bad attitude?  Yeah.  I have been persistently sarcastic.  I have been frustrated by my relationship with the Methodist Conference.  I have met church members who I was convinced weren’t Christians and I was not always kind to them.  I’ve been an ass.  In my defense again, I have also been almost overly compassionate to many people even when they found fault with me and hurt me or my family deeply.  I’ve tried.  But I do know that I need to ask forgiveness, so I do.

Have I lacked initiative?  Well, I have lacked energy and motivation at times because of depression.  But all in all, I think I have shown a lot of initiative despite these issues.  I am the one asking for help and I have been the one seeking to find ways to make churches do a better job of what they’re supposed to do.  I don’t think initiative has been the problem.

1 Peter 3:14 says, “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

So I admit that I have not always been gentle and respectful.  I have not always been loving.  I have failed to be Christlike.  And I seek forgiveness for all that.

Let me ask those same questions though of some other Christians.  Here I am, dealing with some heavy psychological issues.  And while it’s true that people don’t often know I am dealing with all this, they do know that I have been out of work for almost three years.  And some of the people in the Methodist hierarchy have known that I am dealing with very difficult psychological disorders.

Have they taken action?  No.  Not really.  In their defense, I think they just don’t know what actions to take to help me.  But, even so, someone could have reached out to me or my family and walked through this valley with us, and no one has.  Even the therapists I’ve seen have mostly shrugged their shoulders and told me they don’t know how to help me.  Where is the compassion in that?  Couldn’t somebody have taken some time to help me deal with finding a job, with receiving disability, with my grief over losing my career, with loneliness, . . . with any one of the parts of my issues?

Have they had a bad attitude?  Sometimes, yeah they have.  I have gone to my Methodist superiors, people who are supposed to be in their positions to serve the church, and they have at times been cold and uncaring.  I have directly asked them — people who are ordained clergy — to minister to me and my family.  But nothing has changed, and I’ve given up trying with them.

Have they shown initiative?  No.  Not toward me.  It just hasn’t happened.

So the question Jesus asks is basically:  who more appreciates God’s love more?  And the answer is:  the one who has been forgiven more.  And I probably have been forgiven much.  So I really appreciate God, even though sometimes these days I find it very difficult to feel much about His love and acceptance.  I wish I could know in some clearer way that God is with me.  Perhaps that is one of the reasons I need forgiveness . . . I struggle to find and know God’s presence clearly lately.

But . . . and this is the lesson the Pharisee probably missed . . . there are others who need forgiveness too.  The Pharisee and his household needed forgiveness.  Just as in our day, bad behavior, sour attitudes, and lack of initiative are rampant, aren’t they?  Gentleness in love and respect for others is in short supply all around us.  Forgiveness is also in short supply.  So . . . I forgive those who have hurt me.  I don’t know how I do it, or how long it will take to work through it, but I take the initiative to amend my behavior and forgive, and I offer a positive attitude for the future of all these relationships.  I’ll try.  And I’ll take responsibility to amend other behaviors and attitudes for the better as well.

I can’t really do much more about the needs others may have to be forgiven, or about the needs they have to be forgiving, to change behaviors, to improve attitudes, and to increase initiative as well.  I can pray about it and keep up hope, although I will admit I expect that to be very hard.

The lesson about the woman who washes Jesus’ feet is simple.  We have to behave in ways that are loving.  Merely having faith isn’t enough.  The Pharisee had faith in God, yet still didn’t know God’s real depth of compassion or how to show compassion himself.  We each have to watch our attitudes.  We each have to step forth and show our faith from time to time, or it will shrivel up die and on the vine.

And the still larger lesson for each of us is this:  every single day of our lives we walk past someone or talk to someone who is in real pain, who is really struggling, but the pain doesn’t show like it would if the person was on crutches or something like that.  We each must go further than merely accepting what shows on the surface.  True compassion means sometimes taking the initiative to dig a little deeper with someone and learn what their struggles are and how they are trying to deal with it all.  Christian love means lifting our attitudes to others until all that shows is gentleness and respect.  We must each be willing for our behavior to be changed if we expect to be “transformed” by the power of Christ.

The Bible isn’t primarily about our ways, after all.  Instead, Scripture calls us to something higher.  It calls us to reflect and represent God’s ways here in our world.  The other people, even the ones who may not yet understand their need for forgiveness — maybe especially them — need to see clear representations of God if they’re going to be led to Godliness.  And if we’re the people of God, the followers of Christ, it is up to us to led that charge.

It is even up to me, broken and wounded as I am.  And Goddammit I am trying here!  It would be nice if someone tried back.

Think of Red River . . .

Things in the world coalesce.  The human mind takes information and emotions and barely perceived concepts and places them together.  We compare, we contrast, we take lessons from one event and turn them, re-perceive them, and use them to help us through the next thing that comes along.  Right now, my own mind is trying to do that, and i don’t know why such strange, unconnected ideas came up more or less together.

Today, May 24th, is the anniversary of what most people consider to be the beginning of my denomination, of the Methodist movement.  We call it “Aldersgate Day” because our founder, John Wesley, had a spiritual awakening on this date at a church meeting on Aldersgate Street in London.  The year was 1738, and Wesley was an Anglican priest, aged nearly 35.

The totally unconnected thought that worked through my mind as I thought about Wesley’s awakening was about a little-known song that I happen to love called “Incommunicado” by Jimmy Buffett.  The lyrics begin like this:

On the day that John Wayne died

I found myself on the continental divide,

Thinking “where do I go from here, . . .

Guess I’ll ride into Leadville and have a few beers.”

Think of Red River!  Liberty Valance!

Can’t believe the old man’s gone . . .

But now he’s incommunicado . . .

The word “incommunicado” means “out of contact,” and Buffett was using it as a wistful way of talking about our lingering connection to those who have left us.  John Wayne may have died, but he was still with us as an iconic figure.  It’s impossible to “believe the old man’s gone.”  While Marion Morrison (Wayne’s name before he became an actor) was dead, John Wayne lives on as an iconic figure in American life.

The connection between the two that comes into my mind is one of change and identity.  Before his Aldersgate experience, John Wesley was known as a somewhat stiff and prickly cleric.  He had been a top student and was a good preacher, but he did not easily warm up to other people.  He had been a leader in trying to open his Anglican denomination to being more responsive to needs in the community and more committed to personal spiritual growth.  Yet He himself had remained pretty closed off.  After that meeting at Aldersgate Street, he wrote:

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.  About a quarter before nine, while the leader was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. 

Wesley became a changed man.  His hard-driven personal style remained, but it became tempered by a real love for people and a desire to bring them into a life-changing faith in Christ.  It wasn’t just personal determination that drove this change.  Wesley became, as the Bible promises, a new man.  And the change in him, in no small way, led to a revival movement.The icon that is John Wayne was also a new man.  In his early days as a movie roustabout, Marion Morrison realized that establishing a well-defined character was the key to long-term success as an actor.  He set himself on a path to become John Wayne, a new man.  Like Wesley, he internally remained the same person with the same basic values, just more aware of how he lived in the world and how his character was perceived.  The stature the actor and his films still hold establish his success.

Wesley was changed by the hand of God, by faith.  Wayne was changed by his belief in himself and his future, and his personal effort to bring that belief to pass.

There are difficult issues here.  If a person can be successfully shaped for the better by personal will and confidence, is God really necessary?  And if God seeks to change lives, what do we say about those people who have gone to God, but whose lives have not improved?

Often, the central question (for me) is “why is God incommunicado”?  I seek to change.  I seek God to shine a light in and around me in such a way that I see a step to take that brings some progress, or at least some hope for progress.

Think of “Red River.”  In that movie, John Wayne plays an embittered old rancher, a man so accustomed to outlasting and outworking everyone and getting his own way, they he can’t accept the changes necessary for his beloved cattle business to continue to thrive.  His stubborn refusal to bend leads him to fight everyone around him, even his own adopted son.

Sometimes, our resistance to change is so deep that we hurt ourselves in the effort to keep change from coming.  We become angry.  We become cold.  We become distant.  We become slaves to something we once had, even after the reality of it may be long gone.  We believe and follow the icon, . . . and not the real living thing that brought us our original faith.More often than not, this is what happens with churches that cease to thrive.  They begin to believe in the strengths and values of their beloved congregation over and above believing in the saving grace that comes through faith in Christ.  When we do that, or we think it’s even possible that it may happen, we need to “think of ‘Red River.’”  We need to picture the closed-off, dangerous state that Wayne’s character came to.  With that vision in our mind, we may be able to accept our need for change.

Then we have to think of the possibility of change, and the hope and new life it can bring.  And we must believe.  I believe God works in mysterious ways to bring ideas and plans to us.  Want an example?  As it happens, John Wayne’s birthday was on May 26, this Sunday, two days after Aldersgate Day.  And I didn’t know that until I just looked it up.  Think of “Red River,” and then turn the other way and think of hope and faith and growth.  Think of change.

A Maze in Grace 17: Grace and Mercy, Mercy and Grace

In Christian terms, grace is eternally tied to mercy.  Mercy is said to be “not getting the judgment we deserve from God,” and grace is “getting far more love and blessings from God that we deserve.”  Mercy is about forgiveness; grace is about abundance.  Mercy is about not evening scores, but reaching a point where you stop keeping scores.  Grace is about recognizing that blessings are everywhere, and adjusting ourselves to seeing them.

Then, mercy is entirely external.  It is something that only God wholly owns and which only God can give.  Only God is above us.  Only God is in a position to be merciful, and it would only be His mercy that would matter anyway, in the end.

And Grace, while a gift that also can only come from God (as all gifts do, really) is also partly internal. Grace is an action, and it is an action incompleted until we receive knowingly receive it.  Grace is fully realized only when we live in the spirit of seeing life and its gifts as a blessing. Living with the recognition of grace in our lives means seeing everything as a gift, in fact.  It is a change in every fiber of our being because it begins with recognizing God and His desire to give, and once we have opened our inner doors to Him, there is no turning back.

Maybe some have been reading who don’t believe in God.  Maybe by this admission about God I have already lost you.  If so, I’m sorry.  If you don’t believe in God, then whatever gifts you see in your universe are still there.  They don’t vanish because of religious ideology.  You woke up, you were still breathing, you read this far.  Perhaps you read a blog on grace because you were looking for something, or perhaps it was just something to do.  I don’t know.

The thing is, you’re looking for something.  So am I.  Regardless of how we name that “something” we are looking for, the act of looking is a way of stretching ourselves, of growing.  Perhaps grace is the itch inside that makes us want to grow.  In that case, only by recognizing the gift of this itch — only by becoming comfortable in the discomfort of constantly moving on in our journeys — will we find peace and strength.  In that sense, the driving force that is grace is still the best bet we have.   “Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.” — Goethe.

If grace is the reaching force, the accelerator of life, mercy is its roadmap, telling us where we have got off the best route.  Mercy points us home.  Grace sends us out to keep growing.  The two can be in perfect balance and shape a life of meaning.

For me, that always brings me to God.  For you, I wish good travels.

current events (a sort of tribute to “Ozymandias”)

king richard, it seems, had a severe scoliosis.

if the bones that held him are these we’re being shown

then, standing, he must have looked as if his legs
belonged to the person standing next to him.  alone,
this skeleton shows a pitiable form, and yet he fought;
we know he fought and led, bravely and often well.
how curious a figure he must have seemed, crooked
as he was, his legs beneath him like the clapper of a bell.

at Bosworth Field, he fought his last and died at 23,
making him the last of his line, giving way to the Tudors.
Shakespeare, living under later Tudors, made him a monster,
a man as twisted as his spine.  you can see his ardors
played out on stage still.  “My horse, my horse!  My kingdom for a horse.”
Yet, we know nothing of him really.  He is a figure, molded
like a toy soldier that our minds put on the stage of history,
and we make him play his part, until, arms folded

over his chest he is carried out upon his shield.  no rest
is complete, however, after five hundred years, he is disinterred.
his purpose for us, only a name to put on history or in a play.
we don’t know his mind, his heart, or even if he’d understand the word
“discontent.”  we place lines in his mouth, or attach them to his bones.
time moves on and history turns to dust.  love is forgotten, packed away,
and truth becomes whatever is remembered.  myth wins out.
twisted bones may be all we leave behind, all we have to say.

A Maze in Grace, Part 16 — Grace Is a Moment

Sometimes, you have to find grace where you can.  We had a very minor fender bender today, with me driving.  I could literally feel my anxieties shutting me down.  I couldn’t seem to move, didn’t want to speak. I felt as if I had done something terrible even though my rational mind knew it was only an accident, and a minor one at that.

My wife said to me, “It could have happened to anybody.”  And she said it in a voice full of warmth and caring.  The grace of it struck me right away, even though it didn’t diminish my anxieties or enable me to function better.  I eventually did “come back to myself,” but it took a few more minutes.

For me, the greater grace was realized when the deeper reality occurred to me.  My wife has put up with a lot thanks to my issues.  She isn’t alway as open as I wish she might be to hearing me out when I want to talk.  (But I do know I’d want to talk endlessly, and that talking wouldn’t change the struggle really.)   

But I know see that she understands on a deeper level than words would convey.  She knew that in a potentially tense moment, I might eat down into myself and be lost.  She wanted me not to be alone in that moment.

Grace is a moment, the moment when you see love and know it.

A Maze in Grace, Part 15 — From Grace to God

I don’t know what non-religious people think about grace, or if they even consider it a reality.  These days, a lot of people are saying they are “spiritual, but not religious.”  And I don’t really understand that either.  It seems to me that if you believe human beings have a spiritual component which connects  us to others and to something larger than ourselves, you must also believe there is some power or being beyond what we can see.  To me, wherever that is true, a religion is being expressed.

So I would say that a lot of people don’t follow the historic religions — Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and others.  Their religion may not be well defined, and it may not have any historic books or settled theology.  It’s just the way they feel connected to the larger cosmos, and this can be highly individualized.

So where does grace come in?  I just don’t know.  We can say our lives are full of hardship and believe in grace as anything that comes along to weight the balance on the other side, I suppose.  But to me, grace seems less random.

I really don’t believe in that bumper-sticker thought that says, “commit random acts of kindness.”  An act of kindness is intentional, and not random at all.  So it is with grace.  Where goodness is, there is an intended gift, I believe.  Even where grace is lacking, as it sometimes is in life, I know that grace has existed, and in my mind this leads me back to a Giver, to the intentional love of God.

 

A Maze in Grace, Part 14 — A Bit about God

Grace is not an easy subject to work on.  No one knows exactly how grace comes, or why it seems to come to some people more than others.  No one can produce faith, or procure it.  Sometimes, people don’t even recognize grace when it is present.  Grace is like love in those ways — it comes as it comes, surprises us, and sometimes it drives us a little crazy.

I guess it’s no wonder that we assign the idea of grace to God.  Who else could manage it?  It’s clearly beyond human limitations.

But if grace is of God then mustn’t it also be true that grace comes equally to all?  I mean, would God play favorites?  Would a God who would play favorite deserve our praise or service?  While I don’t believe anyone can define God, saying that God is a being of grace comes as close as we’re likely to get.

I have done a lot of studying about God, and after it all, I have returned to where my thoughts of God began at an early age.  I see God as being a somewhat playful deity, appearing (almost like peek-a-boo) in cloud formations and in the scenic hills I remember riding my bike through.  God has His plans and His grandeur, no doubt, but God is also a being with some sense of whimsy.  While our path of learning about and following God may may be full of trial and study, actually confronting Him may make one almost giddy.  God is always, in some way, a surprise.

So I don’t really think grace comes to some more than others.  I think there is sometimes a lack of receptiveness in us that causes us to miss it when it is right in front of us.  So I am seeking to be open.  I am willing now not to know everything.  I am willing to go and explore.  And I ask that guide help me to make the turn that I need to make in order to see Him over some hill not too far away.

A Maze in Grace: Part 13 — The Opposite of Grace

 

I have heard it said that the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.  That makes sense to me.  So what is the opposite of grace?

This just occurred to me:  The opposite of grace is fear.  Grace is the thing that makes us free, even below that level it is grace that makes the very concept of freedom possible.  And fear is everything that is without freedom, and to the fearful person fear fills all the space where choices might otherwise be.

The next time you’re afraid of something, ask yourself if you feel a sense of choice, an option.  The less you see options, the more afraid you are.  For a person with anxiety disorders, choices always seem minimized and fear fills all the other spaces.

That’s a short blog.  But it’s worth thinking about.

A Maze in Grace, Part 12 -- Grace Is with Us Always

Reblogged from Heart4faith's Blog:

Grace is always with us.  I am reminded of this today for a very dark reason.  A high school classmate of mine is now in hospice care and will die soon because of cirrhosis of the liver.  He’s 54 years old.  I’ll call him John.

This tells me that John had a hard time in life, a very hard time.  And this hard time has been borne by him and his family and everyone who cares for him.  

Read more… 483 more words

A Maze in Grace, Part 12 — Grace Is with Us Always

Grace is always with us.  I am reminded of this today for a very dark reason.  A high school classmate of mine is now in hospice care and will die soon because of cirrhosis of the liver.  He’s 54 years old.  I’ll call him John.

This tells me that John had a hard time in life, a very hard time.  And this hard time has been borne by him and his family and everyone who cares for him.  And, I must admit, it’s hard to see where the grace is for them immediately.

But , after some struggle, I can begin to see it for me.  In high school, this fellow was THE Mr. Popularity.  He was president of the senior class, drum major of the band, and seemed to have his own fan club everywhere he went.  He was an excellent student and ended up receiving a doctorate in music.

To me, he seemed to have it all.  I was the kid out on the far edge of the popular crowd.  In a small town, I knew everyone and got along with everyone pretty well, but I did not have the knack for making friends.  I could hang out with nearly any group in school, but I never really felt like part of any of them.  I could only look at John and be envious.

But now I can see that it’s likely that being so popular was a greater strain on John than he could show or share.  Maybe he was covering up some basic insecurity, or maybe he was forcing himself out of a shell no one else saw.  Where I once felt envy, I can now feel compassion, empathy, even pity.  I would not want to have lived a life that leads to where John’s is now, even if it provided all the popularity in the world along the way.

My life is not easy either.  I have emotional and mental health issues that I have not been able sort out.  I am not the person I want to be, and I don’t really know how I will get there.  But I do have life.  I do have time.  I do have gifts that John and his family can only wish for.  I also have the knowledge that he was a gifted person, with a good mind and a killer sense of humor.  He was given gifts to work with, and I despite the devastating end he has come to, I must recognize that I too have gifts and that I can’t quit on the grace I have received or on myself.

If I could take on his pain and save him, for his own sake and the sake of his family, I would.  So as much as I have received grace, I am also capable of giving it.  And that is what I must do — wherever and whenever I can.  Maybe I will always feel like I haven’t done enough, or didn’t do enough things “right.”  Maybe those thoughts are just a part of my human burden.

But I see clearly now that there are worse burdens.  There are loads so heavy that all we can do is lay them down and pray for peace to come.  I believe grace is with us always.

Lord in heaven, hear our prayer.