Chapter three: Grace

Grace holds an important role in religious thought, but you don’t have to be a religious person to appreciate the role of grace in how we interact with each other.  In the scriptures, grace refers to the love God shows for us that we haven’t earned or don’t deserve.  It is the basis for His willingness to suffer with and for us, to help us grow, and to forgive us of sin and stupidity.

In every day human life, the degree to which we have learned grace shows up in how we treat others who have wronged us or who we think might not merit being treated well. Like the driver who cuts us off on the freeway.  Or the family member who accuses us falsely, does things that cause us pain, or takes out their frustrations on us unfairly.

I found my grace level was not where I wanted it to be during the first few days after my surgery.  As part of my tongue re-construction the surgeons placed a breathing tube in my throat.  (They did this to prevent me from breathing through my mouth and drying out the new part of my tongue or exposing it to bacteria.)  Between breathing through this tube and the fact that my tongue was swollen so badly I could hardly move it, speaking was pretty tough.  I could grunt and make some basic sounds, but that was it. My only other way to communicate was a small dry-erase board and a marker.  

One night I had slid down in bed and was really uncomfortable. That on top of the pain I was feeling had me pretty raw.  With the arm they took tissue from in a brace, IV’s in both hands and arms, a feeding tube down my nose and wires stuck in my chest I couldn’t move easily.  After trying the inch-worm trick and failing, I hit the call button. An aide came and I grunted “cd u mv me up pls”.  Inexplicably, he didn't understand so I tried the board.  As I was scrawling my request, he thought he knew what I needed and started moving me in the wrong direction. Frustrated, I yell-grunted “stop” and tried again.  Same result.  Poor man was trying to help me, but he didn’t understand what I needed and I couldn’t communicate it well.  He finally paused long enough for me to finish writing it out.  He got it, adjusted me and the world was spinning correctly again.  That was a missed opportunity for me to learn and show grace.

I think the degree to which we have developed grace shows up most clearly in experiences like this when we are not at our best.  It’s easy to love people and be patient with each other’s failings and foibles when we’re feeling good and our world is spinning right.  It’s harder when we’re in pain or frustrated or exhausted or late or whatever makes our world spin off-centered.  I was not at my best that night and didn’t have the patience for the aide’s genuine efforts to help me that I might have had. 

Surely hospital aides and nurses are used to those kinds of experiences, as their whole job involves helping people who are in rough shape.  They must get used to this.  But after that incident I started thinking more about how I treat people in normal daily settings and whether I have developed enough grace to be patient with others, especially when I am not at my best.  And I realized that I can be better.  I think the truth is that the growth opportunities come when it’s hard to be patient, to bear with demands that seem unfair, or when we think we’re too tired to help any more.  We don’t like it, but that seems to be when we can grow by persevering just a little bit longer, helping one more time or holding off that frustration for just another minute. 

I don’t know how God developed the grace he has for us.  That’s a deeper question than I am qualified to answer, but it is telling that he seems to have designed our experience on earth so that we have plenty of opportunities to learn.  And I have discovered that He is plenty willing to help in the process.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading.