Grace and Endurance

I have been involved with people all my life. Not just around people, but involved - listening, watching, encouraging, challenging and occasionally, fighting with them. I have been inspired by some, baffled by others (I'm not joking: eating straight butter, talking to window blinds, and not tolerating the heat set on odd numbers are a few endearing traits of people I know). Every person has a story. And every story is changing, and being reframed as God develops the plot.

At this point, I should gush forth about the beauty of humanity, how God's image shines out of men, the inspiration of the human spirit. Blah, blah, blah. But I can't. I won't live on cotton candy when the main course, sometimes seasoned bitter, gives me strength.

Rather, what draws my attention to people is how they handle failure. Or endure frailty. Or just dance with their own weirdness. More enthralling, is how they accept the failure, frailty, weirdness of others. Best of all, when this acceptance is with people they cannot escape! No false nobility possible.

I witnessed a husband caring daily for his wife, who no longer recognizes him. He wrestles with his own concerns about finances, heart disease, and his remaining 'real' knee. I saw a father caring for his grand daughter, even though he had abandoned her father decades earlier for drugs. A couple who had started at the altar pregnant, and scared, now parents not only to their children, but surrogate sanctuary to dozens of others.
Whether weakness is a consequence of my choices or someone else's doesn't matter. I must live with it either way. Grace and endurance are only possible out of weakness. These people I mentioned fascinated me because they chose to trust God, they submitted to redemption, they told the truth about themselves and those they loved. The image of God shines so strongly when people forgive, walk with a limp, and extend love when punishment is richly deserved. Every person mentioned is quietly strong. They listen. They serve without pretense. They pour hope into a situation by simply being in the room. Yet none have a spotless record. Some have a limp. Others still have debts to pay. They are intimately acquainted with failure and frailty.

My caveat is that weakness can only be transformed into grace and endurance at the hand of God. Without God, frailty and failure lead to death. I do not believe in a nobility of suffering for its own sake. Survival is not a right. Without God, these situations I related are simply long-lived torment and misery.

For today, I am thankful to God for His second chances, his redemptive miracles out of pain. I love watching real heroes at work, God's stakes driven into the hard ground of our time.