Grace

Every day I think about writing something. Everyday, I think I can’t say it right or I won’t do it justice — or somehow I will offend somebody anyway. But here’s what I’ve got.

I saw this quote from George W. Bush the other day. Whether or not you like him or where you stand politically, it’s really where my head is at:

“Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions.” 

Boy is that true. And every single one of us needs to start having more grace for other people.

Here’s thing — sometimes you are right. Sometimes, someone else is wrong. Sometimes there is no clarity on what right or wrong even is. Either way, we all need to have grace for one another — grace and love and humility and open mind that maybe just maybe, we’re missing something ourselves.

I keep seeing various explanations of why “Black Lives Matter” is important to say instead of “All Lives Matter.” One of the most popular seems to be that Jesus would say “Blessed are the poor” or “Blessed are the children” rather than “Blessed are all.” The point being, Black Lives Matter is about raising up a specific group of people and by saying “All Lives Matter,” we take away from that cause. Makes sense to me.

The analogy got me thinking about Jesus — and his grace. And how people are going to offend us. People are going to be wrong. People are going to have the best of intentions and still come across negatively. People are going to love those who are different from them and still not live up to the cultural standard of how that’s supposed to be done. People are going to get it wrong every single day. But, can we let that be okay right now, in some small way? Not letting injustices go, but having grace for opinions and confusion, leeway for the barrage of mixed messages flying at us.

Can we stop being so offended by others opinions? Can we let people be wrong and still love them? Can we recognize that we all have very complex backgrounds that make us who we are?

With Orlando, the shootings and Dallas and many more things having happened this year, I’m heartbroken and heart stunted. Something is different right now than it’s ever been. Something is wrong, something is bad. Maybe all we can do is just hold up grace and love like a flame, just like Jesus would do.

The video of the two protestor groups coming together that was going viral together is kind of what I mean. I’m sure these two groups don’t agree on many things. But they put it aside and let it be okay.

When you hear something today that offends you, that makes you angry…when you know someone else is wrong — will you do me a favor and choose to let it go? Have grace. Love that person even though? I’m going to do it. Let’s be intentional about it.

PS: I sometimes hate it when people get political or whatever on websites that aren’t for that — or get preachy. I don’t mean to be preachy or political. I don’t mean to say something obvious..maybe this is just a therapeutic thing for me.