How One Jaw-Dropping Moment Taught Me What Radical Grace Really Means (sample)

Published on Thrive Global

I thought briefly about all the times in my life I have been the one who did something wrong. I say “briefly” because I can admit there are plenty of them and I’m guessing I’m not the only one who cringes and hurts when remembering my own transgressions. And I realized in that moment, how can I expect to ever be forgiven if I cannot forgive? How can I ever hope for grace if I cannot extend grace? If I want someone who won’t walk away from me when I am imperfect, if I want someone to say “you are worth it no matter what,” if I want someone to say, “it’s ok. I forgive you” who will continue treating me as if I had not done something wrong, then I have to do the same thing.

This was a human. A human who has had different experiences than I’ve had. A human who has different ways of coping or self soothing or managing his own demons than I do. A human who deserves love just as much as I do, as you do.

Does someone else deserve to be judged, abandoned, or punished by me just because they struggle differently than I do? This was an easy “no” for me.

Grace isn’t a ticket to screw up and not be responsible. It’s an awareness that expecting perfection is a set up for failure, and it is choosing to offer understanding and acceptance, it is choosing love, it is choosing forgiveness. Not forgiveness with a scoreboard, but forgiveness with a clean slate. It is choosing to see who someone truly is, not just the mistakes they make. It is embracing them in all their humanness, just as we would want for ourselves or our children, and it is loving them as they are, not only when they are as we wish they would be. It’s reminding others that they are who they are in the goodness of their heart, not who they are in the eyes of men who judge them.

But ultimately love and forgiveness are always easy when we remember we too are guilty of imperfection and we too – if we’re honest – have a resumé of wrongdoings.

And as with all traumatic face to face showdowns with our pain, if we miss the lesson, we miss the blessing. So when we allow them, even moments of truth that hurt us can set us free.